Socio-ecology of Early and Middle Bronze Age communities in the northwest Atlantic region of Iberia: Wood resources procurement and forest management

• Main Authors: Martín-Seijo, María, Pedro Tereso, João, Bettencourt, Ana M. S., Sampaio, Hugo A., Abad Vidal, Emilio, Vidal Caeiro, Lorena
• Other Authors: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal), European Commission
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2017
• Subjects: Woodland management; Charcoal analysis; Early Bronze Age; Middle Bronze Age; Northwest Iberia; Wood resource procurement; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/343827; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.08.026; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000780; https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84940887686

This paper focuses on the web of relationships established between Early and Middle Bronze Age communities and their environment in Northwest Iberia. Charcoal remains recovered from settlements and funerary sites in this area can inform a greater understanding of wood resource procurement and woodland management strategies adopted by these small-scale communities. Although charcoal analysis of contexts with chronologies ranging from 2200 to 1200 cal. BC is not commonly undertaken in this area, data from this period are of great importance because it represents a phase of major deforestation and landscape change. Wood resources were local and exploitation was conditioned by their availability in the environs of the sites. These communities established a clear preference for Quercus wood, combined recurrently with shrubby species of the Fabaceae family. This co-occurrence, previously observed in Middle and Late Bronze Age contexts, could extend back to the Early Bronze Age and even to the Late Neolithic. The presence of small trees and shrubs such as Rosaceae/Maloideae and Corylus avellana could be related with the open landscape that characterises this period, and with the existence of woodland management practices designed to prevent forest regeneration. María Martín-Seijo was funded by a Post-Doc Grant Plan I2C mod. A with the project “Alén do bosque na Idade do Bronce do Noroeste da Ibéria. Estudo dos combustibles e das manufacturas en madeira a partir da cadea técnico-operativa”. The charcoal analysis was carried out in the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory of the InBio- Research Network in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (Associated Laboratory)/CIBIO–Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources/University of Porto. This work was developed under the project Natural Spaces, Architecture, Rock Art and Depositions from the Late Prehistory of the Western Front of Central and Northern Portugal: from Actions to Meanings (PTDC/HIS-ARQ/112983/2009) financed by the Operational Programme “Thematic ...