A History of Human Exploitation of Alpine Regions

Abstract

This review of human-environment relationships across the European Alps focusses on the montane and sub-alpine altitudes, broadly between 1200 and 2500 m. During the last two decades, there has been a substantial increase in the level of palaeoecological and archaeological research at these altitudes. Many sub-alpine zones in the European Alps have followed similar socio-ecological trajectories; there are however variations. It is apparent that human impact on the higher altitudes was sporadic during the Neolithic (~ 5000–3500 BC). It was with the advent of complex economies, those associated with mining and pastoralism when people started to have a significant impact on alpine landscapes. Pastoral activity increased during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age (~ 3500–900 BC), and the impact of mining on the environment was also significant in some areas, perhaps threatening the resilience of certain alpine landscapes. During the Iron Age, mining activity was particularly important in the Eastern Alps. Moving into the Roman period, there is little doubt that valley bottoms witnessed a stepwise change in settlement and economic activity, and in many regions, this burgeoning economic system reached the higher altitudes, however, surprisingly, this was not the case across all of the Alps, with even parts of the Italian Alps witnessing reforestation. In many areas, the Early Medieval Period witnessed a decline in human activity. Come the thirteenth/fourteenth centuries, the monastic/seigneurial economies comprised the extensive and usually intensive exploitation of most altitudinal zones, and where pastoralism and mining combined, impact on the landscape was significant. In some areas, intensive human activity has continued, while in others, the last century or so has seen the reestablishment of forest, and the maintenance of resilient agro-pastoral systems, often managed by the national or regional parks that cover the alpine arc. Also, new management strategies, combined with climate change, have resulted in the upward movement of treelines (Leonelli et al., 2011; von Grafenstein et al., 1999; Nicolussi and Patzelt, 2000; Nicolussi et al., 2005; Joerin et al., 2006; Larocque-Tobler et al., 2010; Nicolussi and Schluchter, 2012; Fohlmeister et al., 2013).