Neolithic Human Societies and Woodlands in the North-Western Mediterranean Region: Wood and Charcoal Analysis

An overview of woodland history in the north-western Mediterranean region, based on charcoal analysis (Anthracology) from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites, is proposed for the Mediterranean areas of France, Spain and Portugal. The taxonomic identification of charcoal fragments and the diachronic variations of taxa frequencies provide, for each settlement, an accurate image of the local vegetal cover. During the end of the last glaciation, beginning of the Holocene, vegetation dynamics reflects the evolution of climatic and geographic conditions. Any potential ecological impact by hunter-fisher-gatherer communities (Mesolithic) remains invisible; the same comment applies to the farming-herding communities from the beginning of the Neolithic. Charcoal data from the Preboreal onwards testify to the increasing diversity of the plant cover, with open formations dominated by conifers (Juniperus, Pinus type sylvestris), later replaced by temperate forests in association with Mediterranean species and light-demanding plants. Important regional variations, correlated with the bioclimatic conditions, pinpoint the dominance of deciduous Quercus in eastern Spain and southern France, Olea europaea in southern Spain and southern Portugal, Pinus halepensis in southern Catalonia, the Ebro valley and in the extreme south-east of France. From the Middle Neolithic onwards, farming/pastoral activities instigate important changes in woodland composition, with the development of mixed coppiced/pollarded woods, followed by open matorrals. Transformations identified in different sites were not synchronous and were still reversible; the rapidity of the process depended on the complex interaction between human activities and regional climatic characteristics.