Theme:
Theories and methods in archaeological sciences
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each
Title:
From Local to Global Land Use in the Holocene
Content:
Holocene changes in landcover are documented primarily by pollen and macrobotanical records. Syntheses of historical landuse are less developed than those of land cover, partly because of data heterogeneity archaeological and historical records, and the larger size and disciplinary diversity of the communities involved. Changes in landuse are inferred from multiple forms of archaeo-historical evidence. Farming types, for example, may be identifiable based on settlement sizes, distributions, duration, and from faunal remains (wild/domestic taxa, husbandry practices such as milk, traction, and manure), botanical remains (macroremains showing crops grown, commensal weeds, processing strategies, wood assemblages from fuel), landscape features, geoarchaeological evidence (soil micromorphology, buried soil profiles, evidence of erosional regimes), and isotopic evidence for human and animal diet, to name some of the ways in which categorical assessments of landuse type are made. Other forms of landuse such as foraging using of fire, metallurgy, pastoralism, and urbanization also impact landcover and carbon cycling. This session aims to bring together researchers with an interest in assessing landuse, from local to global level, during the Holocene. The session has also interest in improving our understanding of human responses to change, including climate adaptations and technological ‘fixes’ for overcoming limitations. Human land use strategies represent complex outcomes of multiple kinds of choices, from economic to cultural and are not necessarily simple responses to physical stimuli and this session will approach this with geographical and temporal examples.
Keywords:
Landuse, Holocene, Farming, Hunting, Foraging
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Main organiser:
Professor Marco Madella (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Dr Nicola Whitehouse (United Kingdom) 2
Professor Kathleen Morrison (United States) 3
Professor Girolamo Fiorentino (Italy) 4
Dr Marc Vander Linden (United Kingdom) 5
Affiliations:
1. Universitat Pompeu Fabra
2. University of Plymouth
3. University of Pennsylvania
4. Universitá del Salento
5. University of Cambridge
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