7000-year human legacy of elevation-dependent European fire regimes

Building models of Neanderthal territories from raw material transports in the Aquitaine Basin (southwestern France)

Tracking long-term human impacts on landscape, vegetal biodiversity and water quality in the Lake Aydat catchment (Auvergne, France) using pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs and diatom assemblages

A 19-meters-long sedimentary record that was retrieved in Lake Aydat (French Massif Central) covers the last 6700 yrs at a high-resolution. A multi-proxy approach (density, magnetic susceptibility, XRF, Rock-Eval analyses, pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs analyses and historical archives study) was used to characterise and tentatively propose a model of the sedimentation. The important deposition rate results from the narrow and incised fluvial valley dammed by a lava flow ca. 8550 years ago. Two contrasted periods of sedimentation (6700±200 - 3180±90 cal. BP, and 1770±60 cal. BP- now) are characterized. The lower unit (mid-Holocene) displays a fine and regular lamination and holds a single, major, flood deposit. This unit is capped by an erosive mass wasting deposit triggered ca. 1770±60 cal. BP. The upper unit (late-Holocene) is made of organic rich and fine grained faintly laminated sediment, with numerous interbedded flood deposits (56 events) and layers resulting from blooms of diatoms. The sedimentation was principally controlled by climatic forcings (solar activity) until ca. 1100 cal. BP, accompanied by detritic events linked to human activities around the lake. Then, a more detrital input attested by numerous and recurrent flood deposits can be linked to the intensification of a persistent anthropogenic impact on the catchment. Two phases of lake eutrophication are highlighted: a first phase between 1200-1130 cal. BP, as a result of increased anthropogenic pressure, and the current phase that could have started ca. 150 cal. BP.

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6700 yr sedimentary record of climatic and anthropogenic signals in Lake Aydat (French Massif Central)

Cette these vise a retracer l'histoire de la vegetation du petit massif granitique du Morvan, en relation avec les forcages climatiques et l'impact des activites humaines. L'etude se base sur une dizaine de sequences tourbeuses sur lesquelles, en plus des grains de pollen et spores, les microfossiles non-polliniques presents dans les palynofacies ont ete analyses. Les donnees se sont revelees tres partielles concernant les dynamiques de vegetation de la periode tardiglaciaire, mais ont eclaire l'histoire locale des reconquetes forestieres holocenes. Elles ont aussi permis de mettre en evidence certaines specificites, comme la part toujours tres reduite des resineux dans la foret morvandelle avant leur introduction massive au milieu du XXe siecle. Afin de documenter au mieux l'histoire de l'occupation humaine a l'echelle du massif, une attention particuliere a ete portee a la determination et la caracterisation des phases d'anthropisation ; ce travail a aussi beneficie, pour certains sites, de l'apport d'autres proxies (micro-charbons, sedimentologie, geochimie isotopique pour tracer les paleopollutions atmospheriques). Ces analyses ont renouvele l'histoire de l'occupation de cette zone de moyenne montagne, tout d'abord en revelant une presence humaine pour des periodes tres mal connues, comme le Neolithique ancien (5000-4500 cal BC), le premier âge du Fer (800-450 cal BC), le haut Moyen Âge (des les Ve-VIe siecles). Les donnees paleoecologiques ont egalement apporte un eclairage nouveau sur des periodes mieux documentees par les sources archeologiques et historiques. Elles ont notamment illustre le role attractif des ressources minieres au moins des la fin du Bronze ancien (vers 1650 cal BC), ainsi qu'a l'epoque de la prosperite de l'oppidum eduen de Bibracte sur le Mont-Beuvray (IIe-Ier siecles cal BC).

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00530150/document

Évolution de la végétation du massif du Morvan (Bourgogne - France) depuis la dernière glaciation à partir de l'analyse pollinique. Variations climatiques et impact des activités anthropiques

Occupation and land-use history of a medium mountain from the Mid-Holocene: A multidisciplinary study performed in the South Cantal (French Massif Central)

The article presents an inventory of flint resources in the Cantal department. The flints consist essentially of Tertiary rocks (Upper Oligocene). They present several facies, apparent in particular in very variable tints and textures. The south-western area of the department is the richest in /lints. Alongside classical intraformational rocks several are found which originate in veins related to volcanic activity : resin opals and diatomites. Obsidians, present in one sector, cannot be used for knapping.

Contribution à un inventaire des ressources en silex. Le département du Cantal (Massif central, France)

A multidisciplinary investigation combining archaeological and palaeoecological approaches (pollen, micro-charcoal, major elements geochemistry, and radiocarbon data) has been carried out since 2000 in the southern Cantal (French Massif Central) in order to achieve a better understanding of the environmental/anthropogenic interactions in a mountain ecosystem ranging from 1000 to 1600 m a.s.l. from the Mid-Holocene to the end of Modern Times. This medium mountain area must be considered as a complex landscape shaped during a long-term land-use history. Pollen and archaeological evidences suggest a human frequentation as early as the beginning of the 6th millennium BC. For the following periods, different stages related to the human settlement and anthropogenic activities of land clearance and agro-pastoralism have been documented: the final Neolithic/Early Bronze Age and the Roman period (mainly the 3rd and 4th centuries AD). Middle Ages (between the 10th and the 12th centuries AD) and Modern Times (since the 14th–16th centuries AD) appear to be two key phases revealing complex spatial patterns of land-use. To cite this

Human palaeontology and prehistory Occupation and land-use history of a medium mountain from the Mid-Holocene: A multidisciplinary study performed in the South Cantal (French Massif Central)

Stéfan Tzortzis

Papers

Occupation and land-use history of a medium mountain from the Mid-Holocene: A multidisciplinary study performed in the South Cantal (French Massif Central)

Contribution à un inventaire des ressources en silex. Le département du Cantal (Massif central, France)

Human palaeontology and prehistory Occupation and land-use history of a medium mountain from the Mid-Holocene: A multidisciplinary study performed in the South Cantal (French Massif Central)