Ensaio de geografia humana da montanha

Abstract

In this study of his, concerning forms of the occupation of mountain territory, Professor Pierre Deffontaines lists the different hypotheses which would have led man to attempt the conquest of the mountain. Not by developing his speculations in abstract terms but, on the contrary, starting from the facts in order to work out general conclusions, he makes, in the first place, a synthesis of the human activities which, in different countries and latitudes, have marked and still mark mountain living. The factors which may have contributed to cause men to abandon the plains (which may have been the region of their first occupation) and make for the mountains are extremely numerous and vary from one climate or one region to another. Among these stand out: pastoral life, hunting, ever population of the plains, agricultural advantages of the mountains (represented by water supply and temperature) and still other considerations, which are studied in the two chapters into which the work is divided.

            In order to examine the different kinds of life which have given rise to each of these ways of profiting from the mountains, the author makes use of examples in the Mediterranean and Alpine regions, comparing them with the process which took place in the American mountains both with regard to pastoral and to agricultural life. On this latter point, he also quotes significant elements of mountainous occupation in the lands of Asia and Oceania.