Human Agency and Coastal Landscape Transformation in Early Modern Atlantic Europe: An Interdisciplinary Research Approach in the Urola Estuary (Basque Coast)

Landscapes are the result of historical human–environment interactions whose material imprints are recorded in the local topography, hydrography, and sedimentary archives. Human influence is particularly visible in coastal and estuarine landscapes, due to the continuity and intensity of occupation since, at least, the Middle Ages. This paper analyses the historical evolution of an estuarine landscape in Atlantic Iberia, based on the combined analysis of documentary sources, land covers, and sediment cores. The observed anthropic impact relies on the superposition of different agents and processes that has been traced in detail from the Middle Ages to the present, permitting a critical and integrated reconsideration of the written and oral records and their confrontation with the materiality of the landscape. These results highlight the value of the proposed research approach for the study of human–environment interactions of a limited geographical area over the long term. More generally, it has been possible to link these agents and processes operating on the local scale to wider regional and global historical trends, contributing to better characterising and understanding the nature of the anthropogenic impact on coastal environments.