Introduction
Several contemporary works of landscape ecologists deal with the problem of landscape type determination with the emphasis on the synergy of multidimensional landscape perception, i.e. the authors mention the material part of the landscape and its physiognomy, as well as the perception of cultural-spiritual entity (Ot ˇahel’et al. 2008). Other authors, for example Farina (2007), Hong et al. (2007), Agnoletti (2013) emphasize the importance of the evaluation of landscape changes with focus on biodiversity, geodiversity and landscape diversity, whose indicator is also the variety of the representation of landscape elements and their visual forms. In our contribution, we want to focus on the significance of spatial historical landscape structures on the basis of the concept of landscape archetypes which are characterized as synthetic spatial structures, both in terms of socio-economic, as well as abiotic and biotic characteristics of the landscape. The literature today did not pay attention to the concept of landscape archetypes, although there is a number of comments in this context. Individual works, however, have not been published. Significantly more works are systematically dealing with historical landscape elements, especially in relation to the perception of the landscape and landscape image. Recently, the historical landscape structures have been included in the assessment of landscape diversity and biodiversity as a part of landscape-ecological projects. Some theoretical and methodological aspects of landscape archetypes were presented in the works by (Hres ˇko et al. 2010). In Slovakia, landscape archetypes are best preserved in uplands and mountainous areas, where there are clear natural limits of land-use. The mountainous part of Slovakia is the area that has been providing a full range of natural resources for economic potential (expansion of colonization, mining and development of mining towns). On the other hand, in the mountainous areas, there were spread generally extensive forms of land-use, which are in various modifications preserved to the present. The mountainous areas in Slovakia represent the landscape types with high geodiveristy and biodiversity at different scales and hierarchical levels. Western Carpathians as a basic morphostructure, represent the top arch of the Carpathian arc formed by an array of range-like arranged mountains, tectonically conditioned basins, fluvially modelled erosion furrows and erosion valleys. Development of the landscape structure of the mountainous areas was, at one hand, determined by the climatic conditions that correspond to the altitudinal gradient, on the other hand, it reflects environmental factors, determined by the properties of lithological-stratigraphic complexes of geological bedrock, hydrological regimes and by a spectrum of human activities from the early Paleolithic age until the present day. Archetypes of mountain ranges vary across the individual types of landscapes and types of relief of uplands and mountainous area. Among these, we can identify several patterns, respectively textures of the arrangement of landscape elements with close correlation to the relevant environment variables. In this paper, we focus on archetypes of mountain regions of the Western Carpathians in Slovakia, where we point out the processes of their formation and development in conditions of karst areas, flysch mountains, neo-volcanic mountains and mountains with alpine relief area. Archetype is therefore an area which was formed under conditions with strong application of geological structure, geomorphological forms and morphodynamic processes