Wood for Building: Woodland Exploitation for Timber Procurement in the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Balearic Islands (Mallorca and Menorca; Western Mediterranean)
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the use of woodlands in a large-scale agricultural environment. But their focus is on the use in a wide range of plant materials that are crucial to social life, from energy supply to timber.
Abstract: Woodlands provide human societies with a wide range of plant materials that are crucial to social life. Wood fulfils different kinds of needs, from energy supply to timber; so its use in a large va...
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an experimental referential dataset for 7 different taxa, both angiosperms and gymnosperms, to evaluate the effect of carbonization on two taxa.
12 citations
Cites background from "Wood for Building: Woodland Exploit..."
...455 456 Aleppo pine charcoal fragments have also been analysed in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age sites 457 of Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Western Mediterranean, Picornell-Gelabert and Dufraisse 2018)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a compendium of anthracological, dendro-anthracological and archaeopalyonological data with the objective of investigating the nature and distribution of Aleppo pine on the island of Mallorca and evaluating the possibility that human action could have resulted in the spread of this pine species during the first two millennia of permanent human occupation of the island (c. 2300 cal. BCE-1st-century ACE).
10 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the past distribution of Aleppo pine woodlands in the Ebro Basin, Northeastern Iberia, from the Mesolithic to Modern times based on wood charcoal data.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a chronology for the origin and abandonment of certain individualization practices, such as the use of wooden coffins in collective necropolises, was defined by applying a multi-proxy approach.
Abstract: Iron Age archaeology in Europe and the Mediterranean often faces significant difficulties to establish precise chronological frameworks by means of radiocarbon dating due to the so-called Hallstatt Plateau. This problem worsens in those archaeological sites excavated decades ago with a lack of stratigraphic control of the objects recovered. The archaeological studies carried out in Iron Age funerary contexts from Mallorca (Balearic Islands) are greatly affected by these two distorting factors. Therefore, it has been difficult to establish an accurate chronology for the origin and abandonment of certain individualization practices, such as the use of wooden coffins in collective necropolises. The goal of this paper is to overcome these limitations and to define the most reliable chronological framework for this funerary phenomenon by applying a multi-proxy approach. Thus, the chronological information provided by the detailed typological study of the material culture associated with the wooden coffins was connected to the results obtained from an extensive series of new radiocarbon dating of the wooden coffins. In addition, a wiggle-matching analysis (different 14C dates for the same wooden object corresponding to individual tree-rings) was also conducted in some wooden coffins in order to enhance the precision of the radiocarbon dates. Accordingly, the direct and indirect chronological information show that the use of wooden coffins in Mallorca started around 800–750 cal BC and was abandoned at c. 350–300 cal BC.
7 citations
Cites background from "Wood for Building: Woodland Exploit..."
...Moreover, the wood of both species was largely used during prehistory, both as firewood and timber (Picornell-Gelabert 2012; PicornellGelabert and Servera-Vives 2017; Picorne-Gelabert and Carrión 2017; Picornell-Gelabert and Dufraisse 2018; Piqué and Noguera 2002)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors focused on the reconstruction of fuelwood procurement during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the southern central Pre-Pyrenees (Spain) by combining wood charcoal identification with the application of dendro-anthracological approaches in the archaeological sequence of Esplugon (9.4-6.8 kyrcal BP) (Sabinanigo, Huesca).
4 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors used radiometric dates and the current state of research to understand the role of human societies and climate in the transformation of vegetation cover during the Late Holocene in this Western Mediterranean archipelago.
49 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the causalities of landscape changes during the last six millennia using a multi-proxy approach on an off-site core for the first time in Minorca island were investigated.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed adapted dendrological tools for charcoal analysis, based on morpho-anatomical criteria that help to characterize growth, distinguish heartwood from sapwood and evaluate charcoal-pith distance.
26 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore a theoretical and methodological approach to energy procurement and consumption in prehistoric households through the archaeological record, focusing on a specific kind of archaeobotanical material, charred wood, and in a specific case study, the Bronze Age Naviform society of the Balearic Islands.
23 citations
Dissertation•
13 Sep 2012
Abstract: En esta Tesis Doctoral se ha realizado un estudio de las relaciones entre el paisaje vegetal y las comunidades prehistoricas y protohistoricas de las islas de Mallorca y Menorca (Illes Balears, Mediterraneo occidental) a partir del analisis de restos arqueologicos de madera (carbon y madera no quemada). La aproximacion a este objeto de estudio de ha desarrollado en el contexto tanto de las relaciones sociedad-entorno de estas comunidades como de la dinamica de la vegetacion holocena en el Norte del archipielago balear. En este sentido, se han analizado tres tipos de materiales diferentes: restos de carbon disperso en el sedimento de yacimientos arqueologicos, restos de material constructivo calcinado en contextos arqueologicos y objetos confeccionados en madera. El trabajo se organiza en tres bloques. En el primero de ellos se define la aproximacion teorica y metodologica al registro antracologico desarrollada en funcion de los objetivos propuestos. La perspectiva del estudio parte del analisis de varias aproximaciones al registro antracologico desarrolladas por diferentes investigadores en los ultimos decenios. Esto se ha puesto en relacion al contexto del analisis arqueologico de las relaciones entre las sociedades humanas y su entorno. En este sentido, se ha analizado la division entre una “arqueologia cientifica” y una “arqueologia teorica”. En el caso del analisis de las relaciones sociedad-entorno, este escenario ha influenciado el desarrollo de los trabajos de la arqueologia ambiental y, mas concretamente, en la disciplina antracologica. Muchos de estos trabajos parten de la distincion heuristica entre naturaleza y cultura, dicotomia a partir de la que se han organizado muchos de los trabajos antracologicos. Este escenario ha dado lugar a una multiplicidad de denominaciones de la propia disciplina y a la division entre las antracologas y los antracologos entre una “perspectiva ambiental”, centrada en el analisis de la dinamica de la vegetacion, y una “perspectiva funcionalista” o “paleoetnobotanica”, centrada en el analisis de la gestion de “recursos naturales”. No obstante, ambas perspectivas antracologicas, asi como diversas voces de otras disciplinas de la arqueologia ambiental, han cuestionado estas divisiones en la ultima decada, manifestando la necesidad de desarrollar aproximaciones no dicotomicas en los estudios arqueobotanicos. En este sentido, en el primer bloque del trabajo se analizan todas estas cuestiones teoricas y metodologicas y se plantea una aproximacion al registro antracologico que permita desarrollar un analisis holistico y contextual de los datos antracologicos orientado al estudio integrado de la dinamica de la vegetacion y de las interacciones entre las poblaciones prehistoricas y protohistoricas con esta. En un segundo bloque del trabajo se presentan los datos obtenidos en los 10 yacimientos arqueologicos de ambas islas de los que se han analizado restos de madera y carbon. Estos yacimientos son Closos de ca’n Gaia, Hospitalet Vell, Cova des Pas, Ses Paisses, Son Fornes, Ca’s Canar, turriforme de Son Ferrer, Cometa dels Morts, Son Maio y La Punta. Finalmente, en el tercer bloque del trabajo se discuten los datos obtenidos en relacion a los objetivos y la aproximacion establecidos en el primero de los bloques. En este sentido, se ha realizado una compilacion de todos los datos antracologicos disponibles para el contexto geografico y cronologico del trabajo, tanto los presentados en esta tesis como los publicados en trabajos de otros autores. Para el analisis de este conjunto de datos se han aplicado diversas herramientas de analisis estadistico multivariable. Todo ello ha permitido establecer varias hipotesis interpretativas en relacion a los diversos aspectos contemplados. Por una parte, el conjunto de datos antracologicos ha permitido matizar la imagen de la dinamica de la vegetacion holocena en las islas de Mallorca y Menorca, identificando diversas particularidades en relacion a otros territorios del Mediterraneo occidental. Por otra parte, el analisis de los diversos usos de las plantas lenosas identificados (combustible domestico, material constructivo, materia prima para la confeccion de objetos, combustible en ceremonias funerarias y ofrendas florales de difuntos) ha permitido caracterizar las relaciones entre las sociedades naviformes, talayoticas y postalayoticas en relacion al paisaje vegetal y a las plantas lenosas.
14 citations