FUCINO YESTERDAY

 

For millions of years, Fucino was the largest italian karst lake and the third by extension. Its limits and the level of stationing of the waters, in biological time, have been characterized by very significant variations.

Indeed, the last shore line, more or less represented by the Circumfucense road, must simply be considered indicative of the lake level of the second half of the 19th century.

For this aspect it will be enough to consider that in Pliocene more than 2,500,000 years ago, the lake presumably also extended

in the current Valle del Salto.

In much more recent times, about 20,000 years ago, in correspondence

of the so-called Last Glacial Maximum, the waters covered altitudes near or above

that of the current center of Avezzano.

Instead, the identification of a level of yellow-orange clays, during geognostic surveys of the 1990s, indicative of subaerial processes, suggested  that at the transition between the Upper Pleistocene and the Olocene, approximately 11.000 years ago, the lake should have greatly reduced extension, slightly wider than the current Bacinetto.

So essentially, the lake is present for a good part of its geological history, as far as the continental evolution of this regioni is concerned, but with a very changing physiognomy, subject to the equally changing characteristics of the climate and the processes of formation of the Appennine chain.

The relationship between man and environment has progressively affected the apparance of the landscape, modifying it over the centuries, with the construction of settelments and through the practice of livelihood activities.

Since prehistoric times, this biologically rich area and the climate mitigated by the presence of the lake, was chosen as a place of settlement.

The landscape was made up of grassy clearings alternating with bare slopes and woods, where     large mammals were present: elephants, hippos,

rhinos, horses, oxen, cave bears and even smaller animals like sheep, pigs, deer, roe deer, ibex, wild boars, marmots, badgers, hares, foxes,

The lake offered a great variety of fish such as barbel, tench, eels, shrimps, rudds, carp, roaches, sticklebacks and freshwater crabs.

The first traces of life dates back to 20,000 years ago human groups, mainly nomadic or sedentarized periodic, characterized by an economy of hunting and gathering, subsequently evolved with the development of specialized forms of hunting and with the appearance of fishing, began attend the shores of the lake.

The houses were initially made up of caves arranged along the riparian perimeter.

With the rushes and the scirpi, which grew in the wetlands, they came built baskets, huts and other everyday objects.

Between the Neolithic and the 10th century BC

the introduction of cereal agriculture led to the construction of permanent settlements.

The main sources of livelihood, the cultivation of cereals in the plains and fruit trees on the heights and hunting and fishing activities, the breeding of sheep, goats, pigs was added oxen and horses.

The definitive integration of the local Marsi and Aequi ethnic groups with the Roman world led to a consistent demographic increase: villages, extra-urban sanctuaries, and urban agglomerations, which gradually occupied the areas vacated by the lake, later on the stabilization of the water level, obtained the construction of the Claudian emissary.

The emerged lands allowed a rich agricultural activity: the vineyards were increased, a lot renowned, along with orchards, olive groves and the large production of flax and hemp.

To make room to pastures and agriculture, intense deforestation had left the mountains barren: the woods, once very extensive, they were relegated to the highest parts of the mountains or to the most valleys sheltered and damp.

In the Middle Ages, the territory was subdued by the Counts of the Marsi, who to control it,they built a network of castles throughout the area, outlining the characteristic aspect, again clearly visible, consisting of fortified villages around the lake and settlements located in the plain, built around strongholds.

The division into fiefdoms involved alternating the power of nobles families, including Orsini, Piccolomini and Colonna, who permanently administered the territory from the 16th to 1806, the year of the abolition of feudal properties.

At the end of the fifteenth century the transhumant pastoral practice was expanded, bringing the flocks of feudal lords and nobles local to the Apulian and Lazio plains.

Agricultural activity from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century remained focused on a lot of types of cereals (wheat, barley, rye, corn), legumes (broad beans, beans of different qualities, lentils, peas, cicerchie, lupins

and chickpeas) vegetables (as well as lettuce, escarole, endive, radish, chicory, fennel, chard, turnip, beetroot, parsley, basil, tomato, peppers, celery, onion, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, turnip, cauliflower, pumpkin, rocket, potatoes were very popular, the quality of the truffles was appreciated and the Pescina artichoke) medicinal or dyeing plants, such as madder, and fruit (cherry, apple, pear, rowan, quince, plum, walnut, olive, vine, almond, fig, apricot, pomegranate and medlar tree).

Wheat fields were often interspersed with fruit trees. Between the end of the eighteenth century

and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Marsica presents itself to the eyes of travelers with a landscape characterized by perched villages and the contrast between the barren and wild nature and the wide expanse of lake waters.

The two most structured and important inhabited centers were Avezzano and Celano, not far from the shores of the lake.