A wide range of environmental records is integrated in order to reconstruct the mechanisms of flooding and sediment transport within the 170 km(2) Petit Lac catchment, Annecy, France, over time scales of 10(-1) to 10(2) years. These records include sequential lake sediment trap samples and cores, floodplain stratigraphies, dated landform assemblages, hydro-meteorological records, and documented histories of river channel and land-use change. Mineral magnetic measurements are used as the basis for classifying catchment sediment sources and tracing sediment movements through time. Records of magnetic susceptibility for monthly sediment trap samples (1998-99) track seasonal discharge, peaking in winter and spring. Magnetic records in lake sediment cores are compared against and tuned to precipitation records to provide dated proxy records for past discharge spanning sub-annual to decadal time scales back to 1826. Calculated sediment accumulation rates in lake sediment cores are used as proxies for time-averaged catchment sediment load. Analysis of the results reveals that climate and land-use controls on the hydrological and sediment system are complex and vary according to the time scale of observation. In general, cycles of agricultural expansion and deforestation appear to have been the major cause of shifts in the sediment system through the late Holocene. Deforestation in the 18th century may have caused a number of high-magnitude flood and erosion events. As the time scale of observation becomes shorter, changes in climate and hydro-meteorological conditions become progressively more important. Since the mid-19th century, smoothed records of discharge roughly follow annual precipitation; this is in contrast to sediment load, which follows the trend of declining land-use pressures. Episodic erosion events during this recent period seem to be linked to geomorphic evidence for slope instability in the montane and sub-alpine zones, triggered by intense summer rainfall. At the annual scale, changes in seasonal rainfall become paramount in determining sediment movement to downstream locations. The study demonstrates that the connections between forcings and responses span a four-dimensional array of temporal and spatial scales, with strong evidence for dominantly nonlinear forcing-response mechanism

It is axiomatic that mountain environments are particularly vulnerable to changes in patterns of human use, over both long and medium terms, but also over quite short periods of critical activity. This paper uses archaeological and documentary records to look at the human impact on one such montane environment, the pre-alps of Savoy, over the long-term, from pre-history up to the pre-modern period. The use and modification of landscape is estimated at the level of the Annecy Petit Lac hydrological catchment taking into account spatial differences in land use in the uplands, mid-slope and plain. Land use patterns and nutrient balance are reconstructed for specific periods in time between 1561 and 1892. Results from this study demonstrate that seven main phases of human activity have left their traces in the environmental record during the historical period through to the pre-modern period. Of these the 1730-1770s and 1840-1860s stand out as two discernible periods of heightened environmental pressures at higher altitudes, which manifest themselves as discernable lowland environmental problems, such as flooding, increased erosion and declining soil fertility.

Upland environments are particularly vulnerable to the stresses of climate change. The strength and persistence of such forces are not easy to measure and hence comparison of climate impacts with anthropogenic impacts has remained problematic. This paper attempts to demonstrate the nature of human impact on forest cover and flooding in the Annecy Petit Lac Catchment in pre-Alpine Haute Savoie, France, between 1730 and 2000. Local documentary sources and a pollen record provided a detailed history of forest cover and management, making it possible to plot changes in forest cover against local and regional precipitation records, and their individual and combined impacts on flooding. A main period of large-scale, uniform and rapid deforestation in the catchment was identified in the early nineteenth century, but sub-catchment patterns of reforestation and regeneration have varied up to the present. The period of deforestation was accompanied by demographic expansion and regional scale exogenous forces, such as small scale industrial development, foreign occupation, war, caveats and laws, acting alongside local scale endogenous forces and land fragmentation, agricultural crisis, and the desire for pasture. These all produced conflict between individual needs and those of communities and resulted in localised changes in forest cover. Joint phases of deforestation and flooding are more evident in individual second order tributaries than the whole catchment, but there appears to be no obvious or simple causal link between forest cover change, climate anomalies and flooding. D.S. CROOK ET AL.

A well-known characteristic of the mountain regions of southern Europe in the pre-industrial period was the regular movement of young migrants who left each winter to seek work in the lowlands and returned in spring as the snows melted. Seasonal migration became an established and lasting feature of the economies of upland areas as populations recovered from the Black Death. For most scholars the iconography of such movement helped to define the human ecology of mountain areas. In conditions closest to the margins of existence, the main function of such migration, it seems, was to ease the pressure on subsistence, though those returning might be expected to bring back a little capital to help pay taxes. 1 Recent demographic research reveals that this regular movement was significant enough to leave its mark on the periodicity of marriages and births, as young men left in the autumn and returned in the spring. In some circumstances it may also have regulated fertility. 2 It seems at least reasonable to infer, however, that such seasonal movements were no more than a minor brake on increasing population. When harvests were good these healthy mountain environments were isolated from the worst effects of the epidemics and plagues which affected lowland areas. There is evidence that they developed demographic regimes which were characterized by relatively high nuptiality, potentially high fertility, good life expectancy, and lower death rates. 3 While it is wise to remain cautious about this kind of generalization, these populations certainly had the potential to expand quite rapidly during periodic ameliorations of climate, 1 The author would like to thank Robert Woods, Chris Galley, and Laurence Fontaine for their helpful comments and advice on earlier drafts of this article. The literature includes: Dupâquier et al., Histoire de la population, pp. 99-

Inheritance strategies and lineage development in peasant society DAVID SIDDLE* 'We now have a grid that fits over the apparent chaos of French customs...around two opposite poles, that of geneological consanguinity and that of alliance through marriage, antinomic solutions take shape at both extremes of the continuum of possibilities; thus egalitarianism contrasts.. .with the right to advantage heirs for the benefit of community and household.