Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T23:49:25.498Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Did prehistoric landscape management retard the post-glacial spread of woodland in Southwest Asia?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Neil Roberts
Neil Roberts*
Affiliation:
Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, England, cnroberts@plymouth.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Pre-Bronze Age human impacts on the East Mediterranean environment have been hard to detect in pollen diagrams and other off-site contexts. New evidence shows that despite a relatively rapid post-glacial wetting-up of the climate, the re-advance of oak woodland across Southwest Asia was slow. Among the factors likely to have contributed to the apparent disjunction between climate and vegetation is Neolithic landscape management, particularly through regular use of late-season ground fires to encourage grasses at the expense of trees and shrubs.

Keywords

Neolithiclandscapepollen analysisfireSouthwest Asia
Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 76 , Issue 294 , December 2002 , pp. 1002 - 1010
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asouti, E., & Hather, J.. 2001. Charcoal analysis and the reconstruction of ancient woodland vegetation in the Konya Basin, south-central Anatolia, Turkey: results from the Neolithic site of Çatalhòyük East, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 10: 23–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Matthews, M., Ayalon, A. & Kaufman, A.. 1997. Late Quaternary paleoclimate in the eastern Mediterranean region from stable isotope analysis of speleothems at Soreq Cave, Israel, Quaternary Research 47: 155–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O., & Belfer-Cohen, A.. 1992. From foraging to farming in the Mediterranean Levant, in Gebauer, A.B. & Price, T.D. (ed.), Transitions to agriculture in prehistory. 21–48. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press.Google Scholar
Behre, K., 1990. Some reflections on anthropogenic indicators in the record of prehistoric occupation phases in pollen diagrams from the Near East, in Bottema, et al. (ed.): 219–37.Google Scholar
Blumler, M.A., 1991. Fire and agricultural origins: preliminary investigations, in Nodvin, S.G. & Waldron, T.A. (ed.) Fire and environment: ecology and cultural perspectives: 351–8. Asville (NC): USDA.Google Scholar
Blumler, M.A., 1996. Ecology, evolutionary theory and agricultural origins, in Harris, (ed.): 25–50. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Bottema, S., 1986. A Late Quaternary pollen diagram from Lake Urmia (Northwestern Iran), Review of Palaeobotany and Palynolagy 47: 241–61.Google Scholar
Bottema, S., 1992. Prehistoric cereal gathering and farming in the Near East: the pollen evidence, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 73: 21–33.Google Scholar
Bottema, S., Entjes-Nieborg, G. & Van Zeist, W. (ed.) 1990. Man’s role in the shaping of the eastern Mediterranean landscape. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema.Google Scholar
Bottema, S., & Woldring, H.. 1990. Anthropogenic indicators in the pollen record of the Eastern Mediterranean, in Bottema, et al. (ed.): 231–64.Google Scholar
Bottema, S., Woldring, H. & Aytuğ, B., 1994. Late Quaternary vegetation history of Northern Turkey, Palaeohistoria 35/36: 13–72.Google Scholar
Clark, J.S., Chachier, H., Goldammer, J.G. & Stocks, B. (ed.). 1997. Sediment records of biomass burning and global change. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. NATO ASI Series, vol. 151.Google Scholar
Clark, J.S., & Patterson, W.A.. 1997. Background and local charcoal in sediments: scales of fire evidence in the paleorecord, in Clark, et al. (ed.): 23–48.Google Scholar
Eastwood, WJ., Roberts, N. & Lamb, H.F.. 1998 Palaeoecological and archaeological evidence for human occupance in southwest Turkey: The Beysehir Occupation Phase, Anatolian Studies 48: 69–86.Google Scholar
Grove, A.T., & Rackham, O.. 2001. The nature of Mediterranean Europe. An ecological history. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Harmankaya, S., Tanindi, O., & ÖZbasaran, M.. 1997. Türkiye Arkeolojik Yerleşmeleri (TAY) 2: Neolitik. Istanbul: Ege Yayinlan.Google Scholar
Harris, D.R., (ed.) 1996. The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Harris, D.R., 1998. The origins of agriculture in Southwest Asia, The Review of Archaeology 19: 5–11.Google Scholar
Hillman, G., 1996. Late Pleistocene changes in wild plant-foods available to hunter-gatherers of the northern Fertile Crescent: possible preludes to cereal cultivation, in Harris, (ed.): 159–203.Google Scholar
Kelts, K., & Shahrabi, M.. 1986. Holocene sedimentology of hypersaline Lake Urmia, northwest Iran, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 54: 105–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kershaw, A.P., Bush, M.B., Hope, G.S., Weiss, K.-F., Goldammer, J.G. & Sanford, R.. 1997. The contribution of humans to past biomass burning in the tropics, in Clark, et al. (ed.): 413–42.Google Scholar
KÖHler-Rollefson, I., & Rollefson, G.O.. 1990. The impact of Neolithic subsistence strategies on the environment. The case of ‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan, in Bottema, et al. (ed.): 3–14.Google Scholar
KuzucuoÖLu, C., & Roberts, N.. 1998. Evolution de l’environnement en Anatolie, de 20000 à 6000 BP, Paléorient 23: 7–24.Google Scholar
Lemcke, G., & Sturm, M.. 1997. δ18O and trace element measurements as proxy for the reconstruction of climate changes at Lake Van (Turkey): preliminary results, in Dalfez, H.N., Kukla, G. & Weiss, H. (ed.), Third Millennium BC climate change and the Old World Collapse: 653–78. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. NATO ASI Series, vol. 49.Google Scholar
Lewis, H.T., 1972. The role of fire in the domestication of plants and animals in Southwest Asia: a hypothesis, Man 7: 195–222.Google Scholar
Mccorriston, J., & Hole, F.. 1991. The ecology of seasonal stress and the origins of agriculture in the Near East, American Anthropologist 93: 46–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, S.L.R., 2000. Fire and Mesolithic subsistence — managing oaks for acorns in northwest Europe, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 164: 139–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meadows, M., 1999. Biogeography: changing places, changing times. Progress in Physical Geography 23: 257–70.Google Scholar
Miller, N.F., 1996. Seed eaters of the Ancient Near East, human or herbivore? Current Anthropology 37: 521–8.Google Scholar
Naveh, Z., 1974. The effects of fire in the Mediterranean region, in Kozlowski, T.T. & Ahlgren, C.E. (ed.), Fire and ecosystems: 401–34. New York (NY): Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pullar, J., 1977. Early cultivation in the Zagros, Iran 15: 15–37.Google Scholar
Pyne, S.J., 1995. World fire. The culture of fire on Earth. New York (NY): Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Roberts, N., 1982. Forest re-advance and the Anatolian Neolithic, in Bell, M. & Limbrey, S. (ed.), Archaeological aspects of woodland ecology. 231–46. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S146.Google Scholar
Roberts, N., Reed, J., Leng, M.J., Kuzucuoglu, C., Fontugne, M., Bertaux, J., Woldring, H., Bottema, S., Black, S., Hunt, E. & Karabiyikoglu, M.. 2001. The tempo of Holocene climatic change in the eastern Mediterranean region: new high-resolution crater-lake sediment data from central Turkey, The Holocene 11: 721–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, N., & Wright, H.E. Jr. 1993. Vegetational, lake-level and climatic history of the Near East and Southwest Asia, in Wright, H.E. Jr., Kutzbach, J.E., Webb, T. III, Ruddiman, W.F., Street-Perrott, F.A. & Bartlein, P.J. (ed.), Global climates since the last glacial maximum: 194–220. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rossignol-Strick, M., 1999. The Holocene Climatic Optimum and Pollen Records of Sapropel 1 in the Eastern Mediterranean, 9000-6000 BP, Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 515–30.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A., 1980. Water, soil and seasonality in early cereal cultivation, World Archaeology 11: 313–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, LG., & Innes, J.B.. 1996. The ecology of an episode of prehistoric cereal cultivation on the North York Moors, England, Journal of Archaeological Science 23: 613–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, L.R., Wright, H.E. JR. & Ito, E.. 2001. Proposed changes in seasonality of climate during the late-glacial and Holocene at Lake Zeribar, Iran, The Holocene 11: 747–56.Google Scholar
Trabaud, L., 1981. Man and fire: impacts on Mediterranean vegetation, in di Castri, F., Goodall, D.W. & Specht, R.L. (ed.) Mediterranean-typeshrublands: 523–37. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Ecosystems of the World 11.Google Scholar
Van Andel, T.H., & Runnels, C.N.. 1995. The earliest farmers in Europe, Antiquity 69: 489–500.Google Scholar
Wick, L., Lemcke, G., & Sturm, M.. In press. Evidence of Late-glacial and Holocene climatic change and human impact in eastern Anatolia: high-resolution pollen, charcoal, isotopie and geochemical records from the laminated sediments of Lake Van, The Holocene.Google Scholar
Wlllcox, G., 1996. Evidence for plant exploitation and vegetation history from three early Neolithic pre-pottery sites on the Euphrates (Syria), Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 5: 143–52.Google Scholar
Willis, K.J., & Bennett, K.D.. 1994. The Neolithic transition: fact or fiction? Palaeoecological evidence from the Balkans, The Holocene 4: 326–30.Google Scholar
Woldring, H., & Cappers, R.. 2001. The origins of the ‘wild orchards’ of central Anatolia, Turkish Journal of Botany 25: 1–9.Google Scholar
Yasuda, Y., Kitagawa, H. & Nakagawa, T.. 2000. The earliest record of major anthropogenic deforestation in the Ghab Valley, northwest Syria: a palynological study, Quater-nary International 73/74: 127–36.Google Scholar
Van Zeist, W., & Bottema, S.. 1977. Palynological investigations in western Iran, Palaeohistoria 19: 19–85.Google Scholar
Van Zeist, W., & Bottema, S.. 1991. Late Quaternary vegetation of the Near East. Wiesbaden: Dr L. Reichert Verlag. Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Reihe A18.Google Scholar
Van Zeist, W., & Woldring, H.. 1978. A Postglacial pollen diagram from Lake Van in East Anatolia, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 26: 249–76.Google Scholar
Zohary, D., & Hopf, M.. 2001. Domestication of plants in the Old World. The origin and spread of cultivated plants in west Asia, Europe and the Nile valley. 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zohary, M.. 1973. Geobotanical foundations of the Middle East. Stuttgart-Amsterdam: Fischer.Google Scholar