VEGETATION AND LAND-USE CHANGE IN NORTHERN EUROPE DURING LATE ANTIQUITY: A REGIONAL-SCALE POLLEN-BASED RECONSTRUCTION

This chapter presents an overview of land cover and land use change in northern Europe, particularly during Late Antiquity (ca. 2nd-8th c. A.D.) based on fossil pollen preserved in sediments. We have transformed fossil pollen datasets from 462 sites into eight major land-cover classes using the pseudobiomization method (PBM). Through using pollen-vegetation evidence, we show that north-central Europe, lying outside the Roman frontier (the so-called ‘Barbaricum’ region), remained predominantly forested until Medieval times, with the main clearance phase only starting from ca. A.D. 750. This stands in contrast to north-west Europe, both inside (France/England) and outside (Scotland/Ireland) the Roman imperial frontier; here a majority of forested land was already cleared prior to antiquity. The implications of this are that Roman expansion into the periphery of the empire largely took over existing intensive agrarian regions in the case of ‘Gaul’ (France) and ‘Britannia’ (England and Wales). Pre-existing land-use systems and levels of landscape openness may have played a role in directing the expansion of the Roman empire northwards into Gaul and Britannia, rather than eastwards into Germania. After the period of Roman occupation, partial reforestation is evident in some areas

Holocene land cover and population dynamics in southern France

International audienceThis paper describes long-term changes in human population andvegetation cover in southern France, using summed radiocarbon probabilitydistributions and site count data as population proxies and informationfrom fossil pollen cores as a proxy for past land cover. Southern France isparticularly well-suited to this type of study as a result of previousprogrammes of intensive survey work and excavation in advance of largescale construction. These make it possible to calibrate the larger scale occupation patterns in the light of the visibility issues created by the burial of archaeological sites beneath alluvial sediments. For purposes of analysis the region was divided into three biogeographical zones, going from the Mediterranean coast to the middle Rhône valley. All the different population proxies in a given zone show broadly similar patterns of fluctuation, though with varying levels of resolution. The long-term patterns in the different zones all show significant differences from the overall regional pattern but this is especially the case for the non-mediterranean middle Rhône area. Cluster analysis of pollen samples has been carried out to identify the mainregional land cover types through the Holocene, which are increasingly dominated by open types over time. A variety of other pollen indicators show evidence of increasing human impact through time. Measures of human impact correlate strongly with the population proxies. A series of thresholds are identified in the population-human impact trajectory that are related to other changes in the cultural sequence. The lack of independent climate data for the region means that its impact cannot currently be assessed with confidence. However, for the later periods it is clear that the incorporation of southern France into larger regional systems played a major role in accounting for changes in land cover and settlement

Holocene Landscape Dynamics and Long-term Population Trends in the Levant

This paper explores long-term trends in human population and vegetation change in the Levant from the early to the late Holocene in order to assess when and how human impact has shaped the region’s landscapes over the millennia. To do so, we employed multiple proxies and compared archaeological, pollen and palaeoclimate data within a multi-scalar approach in order to assess how Holocene landscape dynamics change at different geographical scales. We based our analysis on 14 fossil pollen sequences and applied a hierarchical agglomerative clustering and community classification in order to define groups of vegetation types (e.g. grassland, wetland, woodland, etc.). Human impact on the landscape has been assessed by the analysis of pollen indicator groups. Archaeological settlement data and Summed Probability Distribution (SPD) of radiocarbon dates have been used to reconstruct long-term demographic trends. In this study, for the first time, the evolution of the human population is estimated statistically and compared with environmental proxies for assessing the interplay of biotic and abiotic factors in shaping the Holocene landscapes in the Levant

Long-term trends of land use and demography in Greece: a comparative study

This paper offers a comparative study of land use and demographic development in northern and southern Greece from the Neolithic to the Byzantine period. Results from summed probability densities (SPD) of archaeological radiocarbon dates and settlement numbers derived from archaeological site surveys are combined with results from cluster-based analysis of published pollen core assemblages to offer an integrated view of human pressure on the Greek landscape through time. We demonstrate that SPDs offer a useful approach to outline differences between regions and a useful complement to archaeological site surveys, evaluated here especially for the onset of the Neolithic and for the Final Neolithic (FN)/Early Bronze Age (EBA) transition. Pollen analysis highlight differences in vegetation between the two sub-regions, but also several parallel changes. The comparison of land cover dynamics between two sub-regions of Greece further demonstrates the significance of the bioclimatic conditions of core locations and that apparent oppositions between regions may in fact be two sides of the same coin in terms of socio-ecological trajectories. We also assess the balance between anthropogenic and climate-related impacts on vegetation and suggest that climatic variability was as an important factor for vegetation regrowth. Finally, our evidence suggests that the impact of humans on land cover is amplified from the Late Bronze Age (LBA) onwards as more extensive herding and agricultural practices are introduced.Domesticated Landscapes of the Peloponnese (DoLP