To cite this version:Alexa Dufraisse, Sylvie Coubray, Olivier Girardclos, Noémie Nocus, Michel Lemoine, et al.. Anthracotypology as a key approach to past firewood exploitation and woodland management reconstructions. Dendrological reference dataset modelling with dendro-anthracological tools. Quaternary International, Elsevier, 2018, 463 (part B) Charcoal analysis aims to study different aspects of forest management, techno-19 economical choices and their specific impact on past landscapes, as well as the impact of 20 climatic events. However, at the present time, charcoal analysis is generally limited to the 21 study of a list of taxa and their relative frequency, as the methods usually employed in 22 dendrochronology to characterize past woodland, based on long tree-ring series, are not 23 suitable for anthracological material. Today, the new challenge for charcoal analysis is thus 24 to develop adapted dendrological tools. In this context, the aim of the ANR DENDRAC 25 project "Development of dendrometrical tools applied to anthracology: study of the 26 interactions between Man, resources and environments" was to characterize modern-day 27 wood stands in accordance with historical woodland practices and convert dendroecological 28 R e v i s e d m a n u s c r i p t 2 data into parameters adapted to charcoal analysis. The purpose of this study is to define the 29 dendrological features with the help of the anthracological tools without explaining the 30 observed differences between the sampled stands (given the stational variability, age and 31 regeneration modes). The first step consisted in creating dendro-anthracological tools based 32 on morpho-anatomical criteria that help to characterize growth, distinguish heartwood from 33 sapwood and evaluate charcoal-pith distance. The second step involves characterizing three 34 modern-day wood stands (coppice under standard, high forest and young stand formed by a 35 mixture of seeded and coppice trees), defined by their structure, stand density and 36 regeneration modes, using dendrological data measured on fresh wood material and 37 modelled into anthracological data with the dendro-anthracological tools. In this way, 38 anthracological types were defined for each wood stand, forming anthraco-typological 39 models, which area useful for the interpretation of archaeological charcoal assemblages. 40Finally, an anthracological key is proposed to sort archaeological charcoal fragments in 41 anthraco-groups before data processing. 42 43
