This article brings together in a comprehensive way, and for the first time, on- and off-site palaeoenvironmental data from the area of the Central European lake dwellings (a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 2011). The types of data considered are as follows: high-resolution off-site pollen cores, including micro-charcoal counts, and on-site data, including botanical macro- and micro-remains, hand-collected animal bones, remains of microfauna, and data on woodland management (dendrotypology). The period considered is the late Neolithic (c. 4300–2400 cal. BC). For this period, especially for its earlier phases, discussions of land-use patterns are contradictory. Based on off-site data, slash-and-burn – as known from tropical regions – is thought to be the only possible way to cultivate the land. On-site data however show a completely different picture: all indications point to the permanent cultivation of cereals ( Triticum spp., Hordeum vulgare), pea ( Pisum sativum), flax ( Linum usitatissimum) and opium-poppy ( Papaver somniferum). Cycles of landscape use are traceable, including coppicing and moving around the landscape with animal herds. Archaeobiological studies further indicate also that hunting and gathering were an important component and that the landscape was manipulated accordingly. Late Neolithic land-use systems also included the use of fire as a tool for opening up the landscape. Here we argue that bringing together all the types of palaeoenvironmental proxies in an integrative way allows us to draw a more comprehensive and reliable picture of the land-use systems in the late Neolithic than had been reconstructed previously largely on the basis of off-site data.

A GIS-based modelling approach is presented that interprets existing data on subsistence strategies of pile-dwelling people of the Lake Constance area in SouthWestern Germany and NorthEastern Switzerland. This is conducted using the examples of the settlement sites at Hornstaad-Hörnle 1, Sipplingen-Osthafen and Degersee 1. Soil distribution and the geomorphologic features of a landscape are used as the basis for illustrating various scenarios of land use depicting hypotheses of economic strategies and aspects of the human-environment-system. In particular the implications of the crop system and the discussion about Shifting Cultivation or Intensive Garden Cultivation are used as different modelling inputs, alongside the spatial demand for cattle herding and for the extraction of timber. The Carrying Capacity of the landscape around the three settlement sites is calculated with respect to the agricultural system applied.

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Abstract-In the European circumalpine region, remains of wetland settlements that were constructed on lake shores and in peat-bogs have been investigated for more than 150 years. Interdisciplinary research provides detailed evidence on many facets of prehistoric subsistence. This project aims at some fundamental questions related to the land-use and the settlement system, that are today either controversially debated or unclear. To this aim, an agent-based simulation model of an idealized, hypothetical settlement located in the alpine forelands in the 4 th Millennium BC is set up: WELASSIMO (Wetland Settlement Simulator). The main problems to tackle are: I) to assess the sustainability of the land-use system, II) to investigate the systemic effects of neolithic subsistence on the environment and III) to identify potential limiting factors for the system. The observer is enabled to investigate the close connection and the relevance of the subsystems for the whole system.

To cite this version:Mehdi Saqalli, Tilman Baum. Pathways for scale and discipline reconciliation: current socio-ecological modelling methodologies to explore and reconstitute human prehistoric dynamics. Juan A. Barceló, Florencia Del Castillo Simulating prehistoric and ancient worlds, Springer, pp.65-78, 2016, 978-3-319-31481-5. . Pathways for scale and discipline reconciliation: current socioecological modelling methodologies to explore and reconstitute human prehistoric dynamics Abstract-This communication elaborates a plea for the necessity of a specific modelling methodology which does not sacrifice two modelling principles: explanation Micro and correlation Macro. Three goals are assigned to modelling strategies: describe, understand and predict. One tendency in historical and spatial modelling is to develop models at a micro level in order to describe and by that way, understand the connection between local ecological contexts, acquired through local ecological data, and local social practices, acquired through archaeology. However, such a method faces difficulties for expanding its validity: It is validated by its adequacy with local data, but the prediction step is unreachable and quite nothing can be said for places out where. On the other hand, building models at a far larger scale, for instance at the continent and even the world level, enhances the connection between ecology and its temporal variability. Such connections are based on well-founded theories but lower the "small causes, big effects" emergence corresponding to agent-based approaches and the related inherent variability of socioecological dynamics that one can notice at a lower scale. We then propose a plea for combining both elements for building large-scale modelling tools, which aims are to describe and provide predictions on long-term past evolutions, that include the test of explaining socio-anthropological hypotheses, i.e. the emergence and the spread of local social innovations.