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The last decades have resulted in a strong renewal of the academic interest of the common lands, even more in a context of revaluation of the rural world and the local scale as alternatives to the globalizing process. A renewal which has motivated different ways for approaching the common lands, including the emergence of an archaeology of the common lands, able to generate very strong narratives on the management and appropriation processes as well as their dismantling through the long duration. In this paper we will present, through three case studies located in southern Europe (the Basque Country, Galicia and Italy), a series of reflections on the potentialities and limits of an archaeological approach to the common lands, pinpointing the capacity of material culture to reveal the multifunctional and multitemporal character of these spaces. Spaces that, as we will argue in the text, will play a central role in the future of current rural societies.

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a heterogeneous group of neoplasms of the bile ducts and represents the second most common hepatic cancer after hepatocellular carcinoma; it is sub-classified as intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA) and extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (eCCA), the latter comprising both perihilar cholangiocarcinoma (pCCA or Klatskin tumor), and distal cholangiocarcinoma (dCCA).The global incidence of CCA has increased worldwide in recent decades. Chronic inflammation of biliary epithelium and bile stasis represent the main risk factors shared by all CCA sub-types.When feasible, liver resection is the treatment of choice for CCA, followed by systemic chemotherapy with capecitabine. Liver transplants represent a treatment option in patients with very early iCCA, in referral centers only. CCA diagnosis is often performed at an advanced stage when CCA is unresectable. In this setting, systemic chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin represents the first treatment option, but the prognosis remains poor.In order to ameliorate patients’ survival, new drugs have been studied in the last few years. Target therapies are directed against different molecules, which are altered in CCA cells. These therapies have been studied as second-line therapy, alone or in combination with chemotherapy. In the same setting, the immune checkpoints inhibitors targeting programmed death 1 (PD-1), programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4), have been proposed, as well as cancer vaccines and adoptive cell therapy (ACT). These experimental treatments showed promising results and have been proposed as second- or third-line treatment, alone or in combination with chemotherapy or target therapies.

Il contributo, attraverso la discussione di alcuni casi di studio, prova ad esemplificare gli approcci del Laboratorio di Archeologia e Storia Ambientale (Dafist-Distav dell’Università di Genova allo studio delle aree rurali, insediate e non insediate. Oggetto principale delle ricerche è il tentativo di ricostruire, con un approccio analitico fortemente contestuale, le pratiche storiche di gestione e attivazione delle risorse ambientali (e le pratiche e i saperi naturalistici locali legati a tali pratiche) a partire dal riconoscimento delle loro tracce archeologico-ambientali e attraverso gli apporti dell’archeologia, dell’archeobotanica, dell’ecologia storica e della ricerca documentaria. Gli esempi si concentrano su alcune tracce, riferibili per lo più a pratiche multiple di gestione delle risorse agro-silvo-pastorali (praterie alberate e boschi pascolati, agricoltura temporanea e uso del fuoco, colture permanenti e attività di pascolo), studiate in diverse aree dell’Appennino Ligure e riferibili a cronologie per lo più medievali e postmedievali. This contribution, through the discussion of case studies, tries to illustrate the study approach of the Laboratory of Environmental Archaeology and History (Dafist-Distav,University of Genoa) to rural areas settled and not settled. The main object of the research is an attempt to reconstruct, with a strongly contextual analytical approach, historical practices of management and activation of environmental resources (and the practices and naturalistic knowledge related to such practices), starting from the analysis of their archaeological environmental evidence and through the contributions of archaeology, archaeobotany, historical ecology and documentary research. The examples focus on traces, related mostly to multiple practices of management of agro-forestry-pastoral resources (grazed wooded grassland and grazed woodland, temporary agriculture and use of fire, permanent crops and grazing activities), studied in different areas of the Ligurian Apennines and referring to mostly medieval and postmedieval ages.

Il contributo prova ad affrontare una discussione critica intorno all’archeologia delle aree montane, come banco di prova per aspetti particolari al margine degli studi attuali in Italia, in relazione anche con quanto avvenuto in altri contesti europei e alle relazioni tra la ricerca archeologica sugli spazi insediati e l’ecologia storica. A tale scopo, si prova a contestualizzare le ricerche del Laboratorio di Archeologia e Storia Ambientale (DAFIST-DISTAV) dell’Università di Genova all’interno di un più vasto panorama degli studi di archeologia ambientale e di ecologia storica. L’introduzione del contributo prova a dare conto della varietà di sfumature interpretative del termine archeologia ambientale e discute dei differenti approcci di studio che contribuiscono agli studi di storia ambientale. I due paragrafi successivi si concentrano maggiormente sulla situazione italiana e sui dialoghi mancati o riusciti tra la paleoecologia (e poi l’archeologia ambientale) e l’archeologia. The paper presents a critical discussion of the state of the mountain archaeology, an area of investigations concerning particular subjects which are currently located on the margins of current research in Italy, in connection with other European contexts, and the relationships between the archaeological research on settled spaces and historical ecology. In order to do so, this paper seeks to contextualize research conducted by the Laboratory of Environmental Archaeology and History (DAFIST-DISTAV) at the University of Genoa (Italy) within the wider panorama of studies concerning environmental history and environmental archaeology. The introduction of the contribution provides an account of the variety of interpretative nuances concerning the term ‘environmental archaeology’ and discusses different approaches that can contribute to the investigations in environmental history. The two following sections focus on the Italian situation and the missed or successfull opportunities for dialogues between paleoecology, environmental archaeology and archaeology.

Premessa dei curatori al numero speciale de "Il capitale culturale" 12 (2015), dedicato al tema "Archeologia delle aree montane europee: metodi, problemi e casi di studio".