The writings of the shepherds.

On the limestone cliffs of the south-looking slopes of the Cornon ridge in the Fiemme valley, (Trentino, Italy), at an altitude between 1000 and 2000 m above sea-level, i. e. on the highest and most remote portion of the territories of a little cluster of villages (Tesero, Panchià, Ziano, Predazzo), thousands of shepherds' inscriptions can be found. These were made with local red ochre between the second half of the 1700's and the first of 1900's, by local goat keepers and sheep tenders engaged in the local short distance transhumance trail.
Dates, signatures, initials, family symbols, herd accountancies, pictographs, sacred symbols are found, significantly concentrated along the steep trails to the highest pastures, where the flocks of sheep and goats were driven after the last shearing of hay.

Between 2009 and 2010 two research campaigns Funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento within the framework of the APSAT project were carried out on the Latemar-Cornon group aimed at surveying the writings, buildings and objects left behind by the shepherds, following two lines of research: a field study to survey material evidence of 300 years of grazing and a series of interviews with the last living shepherds in order to confirm findings.

To date about 1600 rock walls have been discovered bearing the traces of one or more inscriptions, which can provisionally be numbered at around 30,000.

Interviews with shepherds have allowed definition of the features of the grazing economy in this part of the valley, the purpose of some of the buildings and interpretation of the strategic and symbolic meaning of the writings.

The surveys have also shown that the writings are mainly distributed on rocks from just above the village up to an altitude of 2000 m: an area used in spring and summer grazing.