Revisiting and modelling the woodland farming system of the early Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture (LBK), 5600–4900 B.C

International audienceThis article presents the conception and the conceptual results of a modelling representation of the farming systems of the Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK). Assuming that there were permanent fields (PF) then, we suggest four ways that support the sustainability of such a farming system over time: a generalized pollarding and coppicing of trees to increase the productivity of woodland areas for foddering more livestock, which itself can then provide more manure for the fields, a generalized use of pulses grown together with cereals during the same cropping season, thereby reducing the needs for manure. Along with assumptions limiting bias on village and family organizations, the conceptual model which we propose for human environment in the LBK aims to be sustainable for long periods and can thereby overcome doubts about the PFs hypothesis for the LBK farming system. Thanks to a reconstruction of the climate of western Europe and the consequent vegetation pattern and productivity arising from it, we propose a protocol of experiments and validation procedures for both testing the PFs hypothesis and defining its eco-geographical area

Circular Economy and Sustainability: Concepts, Perspectives, and (Dis)Agreements

In the last decades, the concern over natural resources, sustainability, and the current linear economic model based on continuous growth is one of the great challenges of our time. The assumption that there is an unlimited supply of natural resources and that the environment has an unlimited capacity to absorb waste and pollution is no longer a current trend, and growing attention has been paid to it worldwide. This chapter represents a contribution to the continuous conceptual development of circular economy and sustainability, and it also reviews how these two concepts have evolved over the past decades. An extensive literature review was conducted, employing bibliometric analysis to scrutinise the state of the art, the perspectives, the agreements and disagreements among these concepts and their correlation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio