From influence to impact: The multifunctional land use in Mediterranean prehistory emerging from palynology of archaeological sites (8.0-2.8 ka BP)

Abstract

Archaeobotany is used to discover details on local land uses in prehistoric settlements developed during the middle and beginning of late Holocene. Six archaeological sites from four countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey) have pollen and charcoal records showing clear signs of the agrarian systems that had developed in the Mediterranean basin during different cultural phases, from pre-Neolithic to Recent Bronze Age. A selected list of pollen taxa and sums, including cultivated trees, other woody species, crops and annual or perennial synanthropic plants are analysed for land use reconstructions. In general, cultivation has a lower image in palynology than forestry, and past land uses became visible when oakwoods were affected by human activities. On-site palynology allows us to recognise the first influence of humans even before it can be recognised in off-site sequences, and off-site sequences can allow us to determine the area of influence of a site. Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites show similar land use dynamics implying oak exploitation, causing local deforestation, and cultivation of cereal fields in the area or around the site. Although a substantial difference makes the Neolithic influence quite distant from the Bronze Age impact, mixed systems of land exploitation emerged everywhere. Multiple land use activities exist (multifunctional landscapes) at the same time within the area of influence of a site. Since the Neolithic, people have adopted a diffuse pattern of land use involving a combination of diverse activities, using trees–crops–domesticated animals. The most recurrent combination included wood exploitation, field cultivation and animal breeding. The lesson from the past is that the multifunctional land use, combining sylvo-pastoral and crop farming mixed systems, has been widely adopted for millennia, being more sustainable than the monoculture and a promising way to develop our economy.

Emergence and Evolution of Anthropogenic Landscapes in the Western Mediterranean and Adjacent Atlantic Regions

“…Pollen-types commonly used as anthropogenic indicators (e.g., [33]), and present in at least 85% of the records, were factored into an anthropogenic index that served as a proxy of land-use. Specifically, the index was calculated as the sum of the minimax-transformed pollen percentages of cultivated plants identified as Avena, Hordeum, Secale cereale, Tritium, Zea mays, Cerealia, Castanea, Juglans and Olea pollen-types, and ruderal species of the genera Plantago and Rumex tallied in each sample.…”

An Updated Checklist of the Sicilian Native Edible Plants: Preserving the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Century-Old Agro-Pastoral Landscapes

“…Instead of trying to come back to nature, which may result a hard and even anachronistic target (Willis and Birks, 2006), we should try to inherit and replicate the past practices combining extensive and sustainable land use with the conservation of species diversity and ecosystem services (Plieninger et al, 2006;Guarino and Pignatti, 2010). In the end, TEK in general, and NWFP use in particular, issue from a wise and dynamic combination of silvopastoral and crop farming activities, and land use practices which allowed people and landscape to co-evolve and co-occur over millennia (Mercuri et al, 2019).…”

Late Holocene Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis Miller) woodlands in Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Western Mediterranean): Investigation of their distribution and the role of human management based on anthracological, dendro-anthracological and archaeopalynological data

“…However, high percentages of pine pollen are not detected in any of the assemblages, with values always under 20%, and there are samples in all regions that barely register this species (Figure 4), even if pines are great pollinators (Räsänen et al 2007;Fall, 2012;Heim, 1970). Although pollen is not readily preserved in archaeopalynological samples, such studies have proven their value in reconstructing human activities and landscape dynamics (Florenzano et al 2013;Mercuri et al 2019). Moreover, Pinus is considered a species with high preservation ability (Cao et al 2007).…”