La mémoire des charbonnières. Essai de reconstitution des milieux forestiers dans une vallée marquée par la métallurgie (Aston, Haute-Ariège)

Bonhote, Jérôme; Vernet, J.l.

doi:10.4267/2042/25884

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Charcoal production sites are a vivid testimony to Mediterranean forests of the past. These archaeological sites have been used to reconstruct the history of forests and peoples who used to live into or around them (Bonhôte and Vernet, 1988). The fine balance achieved by humans among woodlots, pastoral grasslands, scrublands, and open spaces reserved for cultivation resulted in a mosaic that greatly contributed to the biological diversity of Mediterranean landscapes.…”

Section: Traditional Landscape Management Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Design’ of Mediterranean Landscapes: A Millennial Story of Humans and Ecological Systems during the Historic Period

2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What makes the structure and dynamics of coupled natural and human systems difficult to interpret in the Mediterranean is the extreme diversity in space and time of both environments and human societies. The succession of civilizations that waxed and waned in the Mediterranean Basin over several millennia has had great impacts on biota and ecosystems everywhere in the basin. A complex 'coevolution' has been claimed to shape the interactions between ecosystem components and human societies. Two opposing schools of thought traditionally have considered the consequences of human pressures on Mediterranean ecosystems. The 'Ruined Landscape' or 'Lost Eden theory' argues that human action resulted in a cumulative degradation and desertification of Mediterranean landscapes. The second school argues that humans actually contributed to keeping Mediterranean landscapes diverse since the last glacial episode. With this debate in mind, I show the following: (1) One cannot understand the components and dynamics of current biodiversity in the Mediterranean without taking into account the history of human-induced changes; (2) The various systems of land use and resource management that provided a framework for the blossoming of Mediterranean civilizations also had profound consequences on the distribution and dynamics of species, communities, and landscapes;(3) The processes of domestication of plant and animal species, which first occurred in the eastern Mediterranean area some 10,000 years ago, contributed to the increase of certain components of biodiversity at several spatial scales. Positive and negative feedback cycles between cultural practices and natural systems at the local and regional levels have kept ecosystems robust and resilient; (4) Assuming that human action can, to a certain extent, be considered a large-scale surrogate for natural sources of ecosystem disturbance, such patterns give support to the diversity-disturbance hypothesis-specifically, intermediate levels of disturbance have promoted biological diversity; (5) Intraspecific adaptive variation increased as a result of human-induced habitat changes over millennia, resulting in bursts of differentiation during the later Holocene of local ecotypes and gene pools of domesticated and wild plant and animal species, with region-specific characters fitting them to local climate and environmental conditions. High intraspecific adaptive variation also arose from Hum Ecol (2006) 34:713-729 earlier natural processes of the Pleistocene, mainly from a combination of periodic refugia formation and climate dynamics. During the Holocene, the main sources of disturbance came increasingly from humans, specifically from the coupled cultural and natural modifications of community and landscape structure. It is concluded that a high degree of resilience of Mediterranean ecosystems resulted in a dynamic coexistence of human and natural living systems, which in some cases provided stability, while fostering diversity and productivity (Blondel and Aronson, 1999). The word "d...

show abstract

Section: Traditional Landscape Management Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Design’ of Mediterranean Landscapes: A Millennial Story of Humans and Ecological Systems during the Historic Period

2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the past, mining and ore processing activities in Europe exerted a strong pressure on woodland cover and contributed significantly to environmental changes (Monna et al, 2004a;Breitenlechner et al, 2010;P elachs et al, 2009;Ludemann, 2010;Knapp, 2012;Roepke and Krause, 2013;Py et al, 2014;Knapp et al, 2015;Tolksdorf et al, 2015). In the 80e90s, several studies carried out in the Eastern Pyrenees (southwestern France) and focused on charcoal making activity showed the importance of this phenomenon (Bonhôte and Vernet, 1988;M etaili e et al, 1988;Bonhôte and Fruhauf, 1990;Izard, 1993;Davasse and Galop, 1994;Davasse, 2000;Bonhôte et al, 2002). However, with some exceptions (Dubois and M etaili e, 2001), the data obtained for several valleys remained partial and disparate, particularly for periods prior to the 17th c. The most efficient way to understand the different anthropogenic factors affecting an ancient mining territory is to utilise a global and integrated approach as it was successfully done in the Basque Country (Galop et al, 2001;Monna et al, 2004b), Mont-Loz ere (Servera Vives et al, 2014;Bal et al, 2015;Paradis-Grenouillet et al, 2015) and Harz Mountains (Knapp et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Late Holocene history of woodland dynamics and wood use in an ancient mining area of the Pyrenees (Ariège, France)

Py-Saragaglia

Artigas

Métailié

et al. 2017

Quaternary International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

“…La ganadería, considerada siempre como una actividad secundaria, es citada en los textos de forma tangencial y nada o casi nada se suele decir de la explotación del bosque. A pesar de esta situación, algunos autores han realizado estudios de gran interés sobre la explotación de los recursos forestales -Amouric (1990); Bonhote et al (1988); Higounet (1966); Wickham (1990)-aunque son muchos más los que destacan la importancia de estos recursos, sin que las fuentes que utilizan les permitan profundizar y detallar cuales fueron y de qué forma se explotaron - Clemente (2001); Guilaine (1991); Pinna (1990)-. Dichos autores merecen un gran reconocimiento pues gracias a sus aportaciones se ha puesto sobre la mesa dicha temática y han alertado de su importancia.…”

Section: Introducción: Estado De La Cuestiónunclassified

Aprovechamiento de recursos forestales en la Edad Media: una apuesta interdisciplinar para su estudio en zonas de media montaña mediterránea

Planas

2021

medieval

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

El objetivo de este artículo es destacar la importancia de la explotación de los recursos forestales en época medieval, a menudo ignorada y muy poco tratada en los textos especializados en este período. El principal obstáculo para el estudio de este tipo de actividades reside en la escasez de fuentes y la poca concreción de estas. Por ello se hace necesaria la utilización de fuentes muy diversas. La metodología empleada parte de la selección y análisis de documentación medieval con el fin de encontrar indicios de estas actividades (topónimos, productos…), posteriormente se ha recopilado información procedente de la arqueología, la iconografía y la etnología y se han establecido comparaciones de los datos obtenidos. Por lo que respecta al ámbito geográfico nos centramos en la zona correspondiente a la Cataluña actual. Se trata de un territorio caracterizado por un relieve accidentado en el que las tierras llanas son muy escasas. El clima mediterráneo que le es característico se ve alterado por la presencia de los Pirineos y la extensa línea de costa favorece los contactos a través del mar. Cronológicamente procuramos focalizar muestro estudio en la alta edad media, aunque no siempre nos ha sido posible encontrar datos correspondientes a dicho período por lo que a menudo debemos recurrir a fuentes de cronología posterior. El resultado final es la identificación de una gran variedad de actividades productivas, de recolección y semiagrícolas, que aprovechan los recursos forestales y que muestran un cierto equilibrio con otras actividades como la agricultura y la ganadería.

show abstract

La mémoire des charbonnières. Essai de reconstitution des milieux forestiers dans une vallée marquée par la métallurgie (Aston, Haute-Ariège)

Cited by 14 publications

References 1 publication

The ‘Design’ of Mediterranean Landscapes: A Millennial Story of Humans and Ecological Systems during the Historic Period

The ‘Design’ of Mediterranean Landscapes: A Millennial Story of Humans and Ecological Systems during the Historic Period

Late Holocene history of woodland dynamics and wood use in an ancient mining area of the Pyrenees (Ariège, France)

Aprovechamiento de recursos forestales en la Edad Media: una apuesta interdisciplinar para su estudio en zonas de media montaña mediterránea

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About