Cartographic determination of the dry stone walls of the Mallorcan Tramuntana mountain range (Balearic Islands): Exploratory analysis

Abstract

The construction technique of dry stone, declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, has historically materialized in Mallorca in the form of a varied range of constructions with different functions. The massive construction of dry stone walls in the Mallorcan countryside has left an outstanding landscape and territorial imprint, which constitutes a rich source of geographical analysis. An unpublished cartography of the walls located in the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range in Mallorca is presented as an essay, a cartography that has served as a basis for their classification and provisional quantification. With the support of basic cartographic, photo-interpretation and GIS techniques, the detailed examination of two official cartographic bases has allowed us to determine their usefulness as reliable sources for locating and understanding the dry stone walls in our study area, with a view to a more far-reaching geographical study of them.