Abstract
Archaeobotany is used to discover details on local land uses in prehistoric settlements developed during the middle and beginning of late Holocene. Six archaeological sites from four countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey) have pollen and charcoal records showing clear signs of the agrarian systems that had developed in the Mediterranean basin during different cultural phases, from pre-Neolithic to Recent Bronze Age. A selected list of pollen taxa and sums, including cultivated trees, other woody species, crops and annual or perennial synanthropic plants are analysed for land use reconstructions. In general, cultivation has a lower image in palynology than forestry, and past land uses became visible when oakwoods were affected by human activities. On-site palynology allows us to recognise the first influence of humans even before it can be recognised in off-site sequences, and off-site sequences can allow us to determine the area of influence of a site. Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites show similar land use dynamics implying oak exploitation, causing local deforestation, and cultivation of cereal fields in the area or around the site. Although a substantial difference makes the Neolithic influence quite distant from the Bronze Age impact, mixed systems of land exploitation emerged everywhere. Multiple land use activities exist (multifunctional landscapes) at the same time within the area of influence of a site. Since the Neolithic, people have adopted a diffuse pattern of land use involving a combination of diverse activities, using trees–crops–domesticated animals. The most recurrent combination included wood exploitation, field cultivation and animal breeding. The lesson from the past is that the multifunctional land use, combining sylvo-pastoral and crop farming mixed systems, has been widely adopted for millennia, being more sustainable than the monoculture and a promising way to develop our economy.
Highlights
According to FAO/UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (IPCC, 1999), land-use is ‘the total of arrangements, activities, and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover type’ (FAO/UNEP, 1999)
Cultivation has a lower image in palynology than forestry, and past land uses became visible when oak woods were affected by human activities
Archaeobotany has great potentiality for environmental and palaeoethnobotanical purposes, with samples collected from almost every type of archaeological item/context (Kouli and Dermitzakis, 2003; Pearsall, 2016; Cappers and Neef, 2012; Mercuri et al, 2015a; Riera et al, 2018). In this synthesis we focus on data from palynology and vertical sampling
Summary
According to FAO/UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (IPCC, 1999), land-use is ‘the total of arrangements, activities, and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover type’ (FAO/UNEP, 1999). Land use is a concept that depends on both plant cover (Nature) and human activities (Culture). The availability of natural resources relies on ecological and phytogeographical diversity. Each environment has distinct geomorphological characteristics and soil types which can influence land cover. Each of these features allows, or may trigger, a certain type of land use. As in the suggestive title “Fields of Change” edited by Cappers (2005), it is evident that our (cultural – agrarian) land uses have been, and still are, subjected to transformations under environmental-climatic as well as socio-economic changes
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