Pinna, S. (2023): "Cartographic erasure of landscape as a social concept: Changes in ancient rural practices and land-use policy behind the study of toponyms. A case study from Sardinia", Catena, nº229

As a form of territorial cultural heritage, toponyms can reveal priceless information about landscape changes and its social construction by local inhabitants’ knowledge. This research analyses ancient and contemporary toponyms in Sa Serra region, a vast Quercus woodland in central Sardinia, aiming at: i) recovering the background of the creation process of landscape perception ii) understand its subsequent vanishment due to changes in land use policies. Among the 190 analysed toponyms, a diachronic comparison among maps and old documents, in the light of historical events related to land property modifications in the feudal system, shows the vanishment of a great number of toponyms related to daily rural routines, replaced by owners’ names or simply reduced to mere indication of steady geographical elements. Such evidences reveal the dimming of the local perception in favour of institutional up-down view in the naming process of the land.