Abstract
The outstanding cultural heritage of Italy is intimately related to the landscape and its long-lasting history. Besides major cities, famous localities, and park areas, several minor places and areas hide important features that allow the enhancing of inner-mountain and hilly areas as well as local natural reserves. This enhancement is supported by combining different types of cultural tourism, such as the archeological and geological ones. In this paper, an integrated geological–archeological itinerary is presented, which aims to valorize both these aspects in the inner-mountain areas of the central Apennines. The itinerary, called the “Fan of the Terre Peligne”, is focused on the Terre Peligne area located in the Sulmona basin, in the central-eastern part of the Apennines chain (Abruzzo region, central Italy). It is composed of five sectors (one for each of the municipalities included) and incorporates traditional physical tools and digital ones. Here, the evidence of the Apennines formation is preserved from the origin of marine carbonate rocks to their deformation and the landscape shaping. The Terre Peligne intermontane basin became—and still is—one of the main transit areas for crossing the Italian peninsula since before Roman times and here many stages of Italian history are preserved. This allows outlining of the presence of man since prehistoric times, and here the name “Italia” was defined for the first time, in Corfinio, and to testify the connection between human and landscape history. A SWOT (strengths–weaknesses–opportunities–threats) analysis highlighted the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Combining geological and archeological elements, which are intimately connected in this area, this itinerary intends to be an instrument for the enhancement and awareness of the natural and cultural heritage of a poorly known area that features outstanding geological, landscape, and human elements of the history of the inner Apennines.
Highlights
The cultural heritage of Italy is one of the most noticeable in the world and is intimately related to the landscape and its long-lasting history
Combining geological and archeological elements, which are intimately connected in this area, this itinerary intends to be an instrument for the enhancement and awareness of the natural and cultural heritage of a poorly known area that features outstanding geological, landscape, and human elements of the history of the inner Apennines
Each of them is associated with a color that refers to the geological-geomorphological theme, according to the international coded conventions (Geological Survey of Italy, ISPRA, and International Association of Geomorphology, IAG) (Figure 3): red for tectonics, which created the ridges; orange for karst landscape and dark green for fluvial and water-related processes shaping the main ridges; light green for lacustrine environments and blue for hydrography and rivers-related processes in the Sulmona basin
Summary
The cultural heritage of Italy is one of the most noticeable in the world and is intimately related to the landscape and its long-lasting history This is valued mainly in the major cities, popular localities, and national parks [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8], while it is poorly developed in many minor villages, country areas, local natural reserves, and less-known areas, such as in the inner-mountain areas of the Apennines. To well-known major and less-known minor archeological sites, abiotic elements of geodiversity were added (in the meaning of Brilha [20]) These include geosites—elements, areas, or places of geological interest of significant value and important witnesses of Earth’s history [21]—as well as geomorphosites—as areas with geological features and landforms that have acquired a scientific, cultural/historical, aesthetic and/or social/economic value due to human perception or exploitation [7,22,23,24]. In recent years, integrated proposals were defined based on tried and tested itineraries incorporating geological elements (e.g., geosites) combined to more common topics, such as flora and fauna, architecture, archeology, etc. [28,30,31,32,33,34,35]
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