The purpose of the present study is a comparative analysis of the characteristics of traditional rural constructions constituted by temporary settlements for animal corrals, employed for vertical transhumance or nomadic pastoralism, spread over the mountain regions of three different Countries of the Adriatic-Ionian area, i.e., Greece, Italy and Montenegro. The main methods applied in this research were the detection and typological survey of some examples of these rural constructions located in Southern Italy, whose typical dimensions, building material and constructive technologies were detected and analysed. Major findings of the research have been the identification of some similarities connecting architecture and building material of these constructions, which revealed common technologies applied by people from different countries that, despite different socio-economical and cultural traditions, have employed similar techniques, implementing simple but very effective constructive building principles. Main conclusions are connected to the possible restoration of these constructions that, designed over the centuries in order to fulfil their primary agricultural role, now constitute a widespread cultural heritage with a significant architectural value, influencing the agricultural environment and the visual perception of its landscape that, within the current re-discover of the agricultural heritage, may play a central role, even though new activities related to rural tourism.

The study of stone artifacts and their provenance is an important proxy for understanding the entangled relationship between humans and geological resources. In this paper, we explore the potentialities of an interdisciplinary approach combining in situ documentation of tool marks and characterization of stone types using a near infrared (NIR) portable probe. We argue that this protocol is useful for collecting screening data on objects that cannot be moved or sampled. NIR spectra describe textural and molecular features of the materials and can be used to achieve a preliminary characterization of raw materials. We present a case study from the territory of Montescaglioso (Basilicata, near Matera, Italy), where we combined the analysis of a calcarenite (limestone) quarry, in Masseria D’Alessio, which was exploited since the 6th century BC, as well as artifacts of the same chronology from surveys and excavations in the surroundings. The aim was to collect preliminary data about the distribution of the particular calcarenite extracted from the quarry and identify exploitation and trade patterns. The data were processed using multivariate statistics to highlight the relevant spectral information and perform supervised classification of spectral features. Documentation of tool marks and the process of stone working were combined with the spectral signature of the artifacts to link the stone types to the description of their extraction/carving methods.