The availability and use of wood resources at the multi-period settlement site of Pyeonggeo-dong, Jinju, South Korea

Abstract

Analysis of wood charcoal that was conducted as a part of an interdisciplinary project at Pyeonggeo-dong, a multi-period agricultural complex located in Jinju, South Korea, reveals oak (Quercus sp.) to be the most commonly encountered wood over the period of 4000–1500 cal. b.p. The charcoal data indicate that Quercus was one of the most abundant woody plants in the surrounding vegetation, although its dominance in the charcoal assemblage may partly represent preferential human selection in the past. The data suggest that Quercus-dominant forest declined with the growth of a secondary forest of Platycarya strobilacea around the site from about a.d. 300. This change postdates by more than a thousand years the earliest evidence of large-scale agriculture, which is visible in the form of carbonized crops and large tracts of prehistoric agricultural fields. A relatively large number of pit dwellings for the Three-Kingdoms period (ca. a.d. 300–500) at Pyeonggeo-dong suggests that this late sign of human impact on vegetation is related to the extension of agricultural fields to previously uncultivated hilly areas and/or increased needs for fuel and timber caused by high population density of the site.