This paper focuses on past woodland changes and land uses in an ancient mining area of the Eastern Pyrenees (Ari ege, France). The area discussed is located at the western entrance of the Vicdessos, a valley with significant steel production, and it is crossed by the road used from the 14th c. to the end of the 18th c. for the iron-charcoal exchange with the forest Province of Couserans. The introduction of this singular exchange and the silver ore mining history of this border area raise the question of their impact on forest cover changes and changes in human practices and their link with anthropisation processes. To deal with this issue, we put in place an interdisciplinary approach involving archaeology, charcoal analysis, ecological history and geochemistry. The archaeological investigations and fourteen radiocarbon ages allowed characterising and dating of mining and charcoal-making remains. They situate the emergence of metal ore mining during the Second Iron Age and charcoal making activity between the 15th and 17th c. The geochemical analysis of 9 galena samples showed some different isotopic signatures between ores extracted in ancient times and those mined during the modern period. The charcoal analysis of (i) 2442 charcoals from 31 charcoal kilns (ii) 500 from one pedoarchaeological pit excavated in a waste heap related to firesetting, and (iii) 250 from two pedoanthracological sampling points carried out in the charcoal burning forest, permits a detailed reconstruction of the woodland cover changes from the Second Iron Age to the 19th c. Furthermore, the combination of data from different disciplines allows for a long-term reconstruction of human practices history and woodland management for different uses. In particular, the results show the transformation of the fir-beech forest, still dominated by fir around the turn of the Roman era, into pure beech wood managed on northern slopes for human daily needs, occasionally mining, lumber and mainly charcoal production until the 19th c. The elimination of fir dates back to the 17th c. This assumes the end of lumber activities in that period. Pedoanthracological and palynological data suggest that southern slopes, progressively deforested since the Bronze Age, were entirely devoted to permanent agropastoral activities probably at least since the end of the medieval period.
tailié, et al.. A study of late Holocene local vegetation dynamics and responses to land use changes in an ancient charcoal making woodland in the central Pyrenees (Ariège, France), using pedoanthracology. Abstract Human activities have profoundly transformed mountain woodland landscapes, particularly in the Pyrenees where they have intensified and diversified since the Bronze Age. Quantification of the role played by past practices with regard to woodland cover is critical for accurate assessment of how ongoing global environmental change may affect its dynamics in the future. A local study was made of charcoal remains from an ancient charcoal-making woodland (ca. 30 ha), the forêt de Bernadouze, located on a north-facing slope in the Vicdessos valley in the French central Pyrenees. This valley is well known as having had a long history of human influence related to pastoralism, iron ore mining and smelting. A total of 1,695 charcoal pieces from soils in three sampling pits was extracted, identified, quantified and dated in order to identify tree canopy openings and patterns of change in the woodland driven by past human uses. The results provide new and original insights regarding 1, the past higher biodiversity and the ancient character of the forêt de Bernadouze, 2, the dynamics and history of the main trees and 3, successive phases of human activity. We show that the current woodland has resulted from several millennia of human activities such as pasturing and use of the wood for making charcoal. From the Bronze Age, humans have progressively transformed a natural fir-dominated wood into a managed beech-dominated one, and caused the elimination of Taxus baccata L. (yew). 2
Numerous charcoal kiln remains can still be found throughout the world, evidencing wood harvesting related to former industries. These remains represent effective sources and tools for studying (i) pre-industrial pressures on forest resources and (ii) past strategies related to woodland management. However, radiocarbon dating (AMS), which is the main tool to reconstruct the chronology of past charcoal manufacturing activity, doesn't provide sufficiently accurate dating, especially for the post-1650 period, due to the broad probability range of the dates resulting from wiggles in the calibration curve. In order to overcome the radiocarbon dating limitation and therefore refine the chronology of modern charcoal manufacturing, this paper proposes to apply an integrated approach combining archaeology, micromorphology, anthracology and dendrochronology. To characterise the archaeological record of a target charcoal kiln terrace from the "Forêt de Bernadouze", located in a historical iron production valley of the Northern Pyrenees, we combined classical stratigraphic analysis with a micromorphological study. The results highlight the multiperiod nature of the terrace, i.e. a palimpsest of multiple charcoal production episodes, revealing two major phases marked by an abandonment period between them. Subsequently, we constructed a beech charcoal-ring (n=49) chronology cross-dated with the new "Forêt de Bernadouze" reference chronology from freshly felled, living beech trees (n=24) to obtain the annual resolution of charcoal ring formation. Based on the new reconstructed master chronology covering the 1879-2016 period, we were able to calibrate the charcoal-ring chronology for the 1881-1941 period. Consequently, we (i) dated the charcoal production activity performed on the target terrace during the 1924-1942 period and (ii) identified a shift in the rate of use of the terrace, from one-off to high-intensive use. This study also provides new insights regarding (i) the particular nature of the archaeological record and (ii) the operating and timing of past charcoal-making practices in connection with silvicultural treatments.
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