First insights into the wood management for the production of lime given by the anthracological study of a 19th century lime kiln from Martinique, Lesser Antilles

Abstract

The colonial economy of Martinique, French West Indies, has long been based on sugar cane exploitation, which started in the 17th century and decreased during the 19th century. Sugar economy led to woodland exploitation for the production of fuel. In particular, this fuelwood was needed for lime production, which was used for the purification of cane juice. As lime kilns are numerous in Martinique, their functioning implied an intense wood exploitation. To date, no archaeobotanical studies were conducted to assess how lime kiln workers used and managed wood for the production of fuel. In this study, we analyzed 207 wood charcoals fragments from a 19th century lime kiln at the Sucrerie plantation, Les Anses-d’Arlet, Martinique. This led to the identification of 50 taxa, showing that wood collection was mainly diffuse and unfocused. But the occurrence of taxa known as being used for fuelwood or charcoal production suggests that lime kiln workers were looking for wood with good fuel properties. Our results also show that the collection of wood was made locally, as revealed by the presence of a xero- to mesophilic vegetation in the anthracological record, which is in accordance with botanical and ethnological data. The presence of pioneer and heliophilic taxa also suggest that the vegetation was already impacted by wood exploitation, i.e., local forest associations were largely disturbed by this time and secondary regrowth was conspicuous. Nevertheless, the high proportion of small-gauge wood charcoals fragments (36%) and the presence of edible taxa in the anthracological record suggest that saplings and pruning waste may have been preferred to preserve useful and mature trees. This study allows for the first time to assess which fuelwood was used by Antillean lime kiln workers during the colonial Period which makes it possible to better understand one of the most widespread handicrafts during the sugar exploitation in the Caribbean.