Before mankind all that existed were natural scenarios based on systemogenic processes and ecological succession guiding the ecosystem to more complex and self-organized stages [49, 51]. People colonize habitats and develop niches; starting the process of nature artificialization and hominid frontier expansion, as well as, the clearing of the wildland and
its transformation into rural (wasteland) and, afterwards into urban (built territory); bann (abandoned territory) and agri deserti (agonizing territory) [49, 52]. When man clears the wildland, there is a simultaneous hominid frontier expansion, simplification of the natural ecosystems and input-output of ecosystem elements, shaping the territory on the basis of society’s culture and technology. In this context, the cultural landscape appears gradually as an expression of the sociostructure over the biogeostructure, in a coevolutive context articulated by the tecnostructure [23, 52, 53].
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The hominid frontier expansion is followed by a territorial specialization and the emergence of different territory typologies, such as: protected wildlands, rural and urban. These territorials typologies are differentiated by the various proportions of the three territorial components within: saltus, ager and polis (Figure 2). Saltus represents the territorial component which is not directly affected by the anthropic action; ager is a territorial component cleared with direct artificialization due to the anthropic action in a intermediate level, being land cropping the predominant artificialization style; polis, refers to a territorial component with a high level of artificialization, being its main style construction and infrastructure. The protected wildland territories are made up of in large proportion by saltus and in lower proportions by ager and polis. Urban territories are mainly made up of the polis component; and rural territories present a more balanced situation of these three elements: saltus, ager and polis.
POLIS
AGER
SALTUS
Artificia ization
Fig. 2. Relative proportions of territorial components: saltus, ager and polis, belonging to the territorial typologies: protected wildland, rural and urban, depending on the level and style of artificialization [adapted from 54].
Various farms management typologies appear in these territories: in the urban territories, there are megacities, cities, towns, villages, among others; in rural territories, different kind of farms, vegetable gardens, urban parks, ranches, coexist; an finally, in the natural territories there are National Parks, Biosphere Reserves, Forest Reserves, Nature Sanctuaries, ethnic reserves, and the like.
