In Mesopotamia since 6, years bp , the development of irrigation systems led to a considerable increase in the agricultural area, but since the fourth millennium bp large area losses due to irrigation mistakes salinization are reported. Generally, deforestation and erosion processes are known from several regions of the Mediterranean area since 7, bp.
This chapter profited very much from the profound knowledge of Thomas Naumann Siegen to whom I am very grateful. Skip to main content. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Advertisement Hide. Authors Authors and affiliations Wolfgang Nentwig. Reference work entry First Online: 01 January This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Acknowledgment This chapter profited very much from the profound knowledge of Thomas Naumann Siegen to whom I am very grateful. Agenbroad LD New World mammoth distribution. Catling PM Extinction and the importance of history and dependence in conservation.
Trop Conserv 2: 2—14 Google Scholar. For this reason, they are commonly associated with pioneer plant communities that are characteristic of early postglacial vegetation development. Although it is not possible to identify junipers to species level based on the wood anatomical structure of charcoals alone, it is noteworthy that none of the Mediterranean thermophilous species presently distributed in southern Greece can tolerate cold and arid climes.
It is therefore highly unlikely that the FC juniper charcoals could have derived from a Mediterranean lowland species such as J. Another species native to the Peloponnese that is both frost- and drought-tolerant but intolerant of heat is J. Other species whose late Pleistocene distributions might have exhibited similar altitudinal migration patterns include dwarf common juniper varieties such as J. The hypothesis for the presence of a cold- and drought-tolerant Juniperus species at FC that is currently extinct from this area finds additional support in the fact that juniper charcoal frequencies decrease through time concurrently with climatic amelioration.
Juniperus declines dramatically in sub-phase 4a and is completely absent from sub-phases 4b-e. However, considering also the high charcoal counts obtained from C-Phase 5, this is improbable. Overall, the status of Juniperus in the FC charcoal sequence suggests that the present-day abundance of the thermophilous J.
Amygdalus including the xerophytic wild almond A. Even under the Younger Dryas cold and arid regime, Juniperus did not replace Amygdalus as the dominant species see Fig 6.
It is possible that the vegetation impacts of increasing climatic aridity were, at least to some extent, mitigated by the proximity of the coastline. At the same time, however, the rapid increase of Juniperus values in the uppermost CSUs of stratum T3 points to a rather quick onset of quasi-continental conditions including cold winter and spring seasons, and relatively short summer seasons to which the cold-loving junipers are well-adapted.
It is also likely that a net decrease in precipitation favored both the grasses and the more cold-tolerant large-seeded legumes at the expense of the already sparse arboreal cover, due to the greater capacity of annual plants to compete effectively with woody perennials for limited ground moisture resources. A comparable dynamic vegetation response pattern has been observed in the Mediterranean littoral of the southern Levant, where grasses persisted during the Younger Dryas unlike their retreat from inland Irano-Turanian ecoregions [ 21 ].
Unlike other categories of archaeological materials, which were apparently strongly influenced by cultural choices and the periodicity of occupation at FC [ 24 ] the charcoal stratigraphy is very closely aligned with the local and regional diachronic palaeoenvironmental trends that affected woodland composition and ecology in the site environs.
The onset of sub-phase 2b stratum T3 is marked by the reduction of Juniperus and a concurrent increase of Amygdalus. The start of C-Phase 3 is marked by the rapid increase in Juniperus within the uppermost units of T3. Sub-phase 4a is marked by the dramatic drop of Juniperus alongside a reduction of Amygdalus and an equally dramatic peak in Maloideae values.
In sub-phase 4b Juniperus disappears. The abrupt drop of Juniperus charcoal frequencies observed in H1A— directly overlies the sampled units in strata U and T3, which recorded high Juniperus values and are securely radiocarbon dated to the Younger Dryas. The continuous, high-resolution record of charcoal deposition obtained from this segment of the H1A charcoal stratigraphy permits treating the Juniperus charcoal curve as a reliable palaeoecological proxy for assigning the upper end of stratum U H1A— and the basal units of stratum V H1A— to the YD termination and the start of the Holocene.
Global ice core data and chronology retrieved from [ 30 ], global sea-level rise data from [ 1 ], FC regional sea-level and shoreline models from [ 15 — 16 , 32 ] and archaeological chronology data from [ 11 , 20 , 24 ]. The extent to which such rapid climatic reversals could have exerted lasting hence archaeobotanically detectable impacts on the local vegetation is debatable.
The PBO might thus explain, at least in part, the depositional hiatus claimed for stratum V [ 11 — 12 ]. Future radiocarbon dates obtained from strata U and V may help resolve the uncertainty surrounding their chronology, including whether there was a catholic hiatus in archaeological deposition at FC, and probe further the palaeoecological significance of the Juniperus charcoal curve in H1A.
The bulk of C-Phase 4 sub-phases 4c-e comprises samples originating in two different trenches H1A, FAS which were not stratigraphically contiguous, and except for FAS, , did not derive from excavation units sampled by large-scale tank flotation. Thus, their utility for reconstructing changes in woodland composition within C-Phase 4 is limited.
On the other hand, Amygdalus appears to dominate the CSUs of sub-phase 4c that were sampled by small-scale bucket flotation. A potential explanation for these discrepancies is that they were caused by unknown taphonomic factors affecting the sampled excavation units, which render problematic the interpretation of the shifts observed in charcoal sample composition during the timespan represented by sub-phases 4c-e.
Another indicator of the prevalence of a more positive moisture balance during the Mesolithic period is the increasing presence of Prunus. The dendroanthracological data demonstrate the prevalence of small-caliber round wood in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, alongside the frequent incidence of fungal hyphae on Amygdalus charcoals, which points to the regular collection of dieback deadwood from almond shrubs growing in the FC hinterland.
In the Palaeolithic, the prevalence of shrub forms was likely caused by the prevailing cold and arid climes. In the Mesolithic, although the dendroanthracological evidence points to improved growth conditions for almonds, shrub forms probably persisted as an adaptive strategy of perennial woody plants to intensified competition with annual grasses for seasonally deficient ground moisture [ 29 ].
Independent palaeoclimatic archives in the Eastern Mediterranean also indicate heightened climatic seasonality in the first two millennia of the Holocene characterized by hot and arid summers and wet winters favoring the expansion of grasslands [ 21 ]. The absence of evergreen and deciduous oak charcoal Quercus from both the Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic phases represents perhaps the most important indicator of the ecological distinctiveness of the southern Argolid coastal shelf woodland-grassland biome, especially when considering the fact that oaks were present in the neighboring cave sites of Kefalari and Klissoura both located in more humid inland areas; see Fig 1A and 1B in the late Upper Palaeolithic [ 8 ].
Even this date is however questionable, as their presence in the uppermost H1A Upper Mesolithic units might equally represent intrusions from Neolithic layers, which in trench H1A lay directly atop the Upper Mesolithic stratum X2 Fig 4.
Altogether, the integrated FC wood and non-wood botanical data offer strong support to the hypothesis that Amygdalus and Maloideae fuel wood was predominantly collected from the coastal plain, where these taxa formed sparse, open woodlands with an understorey rich in wild cereals and legumes. In turn, these woodlands differed in their botanical composition from the Mediterranean-type woodland habitats previously proposed in the literature [ 14 , 17 , 24 ]. The fact that Pistacia nuts were intensively collected during the Mesolithic period suggests that terebinth stands might have grown at some distance from the coastal zone, and that their nuts were selectively harvested and brought back to the site.
Alternatively, and more plausibly, it may indicate that Pistacia grew in moister localities on the coastal plain e. C-Phase 5 represents a clear break in the charcoal stratigraphy.
They are dominated by Mediterranean taxa including evergreen and deciduous oaks Quercus growing alongside Amygdalus , Maloideae, Acer and Arbutus and riparian trees such Fraxinus and Platanus. Pistacia charcoal is also regularly present. In contrast to earlier periods, plant-food species comprise predominantly domesticated cereal crops without significant inputs by nuts gathered from the wild Pistacia , Amygdalus.
Large caliber charcoal specimens of all taxa are notably ubiquitous in the Neolithic CSUs. This suggests a greater incidence of maquis woodland clearance during this period, possibly in association with cereal cultivation. Figs 13 and 14 represent the evolution of the FC coastline as reconstructed from the Last Glacial Maximum to the end of the Neolithic period [ 15 — 16 ]. The available evidence points to a high degree of chronological convergence between the charcoal stratigraphy as a proxy of palaeovegetation change, the global palaeoclimatic records, and the available SLR models see also Fig It was rapidly colonized first by Juniperus , followed by Amygdalus alongside annual legumes and grasses.
After approximately a millennium of nearly stable coastal conditions during the Younger Dryas, SLR resumed at the start of the Holocene, albeit at much reduced rates by comparison to the Lateglacial. The abrupt increase in temperature and precipitation that marked the onset of the Holocene across the Eastern Mediterranean was accompanied by the dramatic expansion of grasslands [ 21 , 31 ].
This is also clearly reflected in the FC Mesolithic archaeobotanical samples that are overwhelmingly dominated by almond and terebinth nuts, wild-type oats, barley and lentils. Redrawn based on data presented in Van Andel and Sutton [ 15 ]: Figs 6 and 12— Redrawn based on data presented in Van Andel and Sutton [ 15 ]: Fig Black dot denotes location of FC seaside Paralia open-air Neolithic site.
Redrawn based on data presented in [ 32 ]. The available evidence suggests that the first signs of palaeoenvironmental pressures on traditionally used plant resources were manifested during the first half of the 10 th millennium cal BP.
The Upper Mesolithic charcoal data sub-phase 4e do not paint a picture of substantial changes in fuel wood species diversity and availability during this period. It appears that most firewood was still collected from pockets of Maloideae- Amygdalus woodland that persisted on parts of the increasingly narrowing coastal shelf, or more likely the banks of the Franchthi River, the FC terrace and the colluvial slopes abutting the FC promontory.
The non-wood botanical evidence indicates very limited plant-food use during this period, which is distinguished by an emphasis on tuna fishing [ 14 , 18 ]. It is possible that, apart from the increasing inundation of the coastal shelf by SLR, the increasing salinization of the Franchthi River due to rising sea-levels had also began affecting the availability of wild cereal and legume stands on the FC terrace and the riverine floodplain alluvium that formed a dominant feature of the local landscape during the early Holocene [ 34 — 35 ].
For the earlier part of this period, the non-wood botanical data indicate a marked reduction in charred plant densities, while wild oats and barley gradually disappear from the botanical assemblage [ 14 ]. Amygdalus and Pistacia nuts also decrease markedly. Towards the end of the 9 th millennium cal BP the sea inlet had broken into the Kiladha bay and seawater continued moving upstream the Franchthi River and its tributaries Fig 14 [ 15 — 16 ]. Anthracological data are again available from the beginning of the 8 th millennium cal BP Middle Neolithic.
They clearly point to the radical reconfiguration of the landscapes of the coastal zone, with Neolithic fuel wood gathering and cereal crop cultivation targeting the Mediterranean maquis and riparian vegetation growing on the hill zone and the alluvial plains that were by that time proximate to the coastline.
The first systematic application of anthracology at FC has revealed unambiguous differences in the nature and ecology of the vegetation environments proximate to the site during the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, which are closely related to climate change, and the rate and pace of the submergence of the coastal shelf by postglacial SLR.
During the Lateglacial and the early Holocene fuel wood and plant-food procurement targeted the open grassland-woodland biome that dominated the still exposed coastal shelf of the southern Argolid peninsula. Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic plant exploitation focused on the intensive harvesting of almonds which also provided the bulk of fuel wood and terebinth nuts supplemented by large-seeded annuals including oats, barley and lentils. This plant resource spectrum with its emphasis on protein-rich nuts and legumes, and the reliance on almond wood as fuel overlaps significantly with those known from a majority of late Pleistocene and early Holocene habitation sites located in the semi-arid steppe woodlands of continental Southwest Asia [ 21 — 22 , 29 ].
In turn, such similarities point to the convergent evolution of pre-agricultural plant resource choice and exploitation strategies in Southwest Asia and the southern Argolid coastal shelf, due to the opportunities afforded to human foragers by the development of ecologically homologous plant niches. Unlike the rugged topography and highly fragmented hinterlands of the southern Greek mainland, the coastal shelf zone comprised numerous well-drained large terraces and steppe-like undulating surfaces, which provided optimal environments for the development of savanna-like vegetation.
This highly distinctive biome likely extended not only on the coastal plain proximate to FC but all around the present-day coastline of the southern Argolid peninsula Fig This climatic peak boosted the availability of dense, highly productive stands of annual grasses and legumes alongside nuts and fruits during the Mesolithic period, which is amply demonstrated by the extraordinary density and diversity of the FC Lower Mesolithic botanical assemblage.
Although isolated patches of grass and open woodland vegetation probably persisted along the coast, on the FC terrace and on the hills and inland alluvial plains, these could no longer sustain intensive, year-round human foraging for food and firewood. The deterioration of traditionally exploited plant resources was probably exacerbated further during the early 9 th millennium cal BP by the increasing salinization of the Kiladha bay area due to saltwater upstream movement and intrusion of the aquifer via the coastal karst systems.
The integrated wood and non-wood botanical datasets point to a complete shift in the ecology of fuel wood gathering and food production at the very beginning of the 8 th millennium cal BP possibly earlier, albeit no charcoal data are available from the Final Mesolithic and Initial Neolithic periods. As the FC coastline approached its modern configuration, fuel wood gathering targeted Mediterranean maquis woodlands that were also routinely cleared for the establishment of cereal crop fields.
Cereal cultivation provided the bulk of plant-derived subsistence in the Neolithic period, with a concurrent significant reduction in the consumption of nuts and other fruit species gathered from the wild.
Whether or not the prehistoric inhabitants of FC cultivated wild cereals and legumes during the late Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic e.
Despite the large scale and the intensity of sampling at FC in the s, the large flotation mesh size used at the time has resulted, at best, in the sporadic recovery of certain elements of the small-seeded wild flora e. This non-rectifiable recovery bias precludes a more precise evaluation of the floristic composition of the FC grassland vegetation and how it changed through time, including the ruderal floras associated with intensively gathered and, potentially, managed crop progenitor species such as barley, oats and lentils.
A new program of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses of crop progenitor and other large legume seeds could also help elucidating plant growth conditions including identifying the impacts of a range of possible plant management regimes e. The hypothesis of cultivation without domestication at FC and potentially other sites too must therefore remain open to future empirical testing. The meta-analysis of the previously published non-wood botanical dataset has re-affirmed the early introduction of a limited set of 2 domesticated cereal crops emmer wheat, 2-row hulled barley which took place soon after cal BP and was followed in later Neolithic phases by the introduction of einkorn wheat [ 14 ].
In turn, the apparent absence of pulse cultivars from the FC Neolithic cultivation systems or their low-level contribution to them points to a complete break with Mesolithic traditions of plant management, in which lentils held a prominent position. It also presents a poor fit with a pattern of long familiarity with the exploitation of large-seeded legumes that can be traced as far back as the Lateglacial.
The non-wood botanical record thus appears to be in full agreement with the results of faunal analyses indicating the wholesale replacement of Mesolithic broad-spectrum prey choice by a domestic animal economy focused on caprine meat production [ 19 ].
However, unresolved discrepancies remain between the botanical and faunal subsistence archaeology records and at least some material culture data categories including chipped stone, marine mollusks and personal ornaments. The latter point to cultural continuities between the Final Mesolithic and the Initial Neolithic and have been interpreted as indicators of acculturation rather than outright colonization by Neolithic farming groups migrating from the Near East [ 20 ].
A more productive way to address these apparent contradictions in the FC archaeological record is through the hypothesis that domesticated cereal crops were selectively introduced at FC, alongside herded caprines, as part of a complex pattern of cultural interactions that brought together indigenous and immigrant groups.
The non-wood botanical data are strongly suggestive of the idiosyncratic nature of FC Neolithic crop choice. The fact that unlike other Neolithic sites in Greece einkorn wheat was introduced to FC only after the Early Neolithic has already been noted in previous publications [ 14 ].
Seen in this light, the apparent exclusion of lentils from the core group of FC crop cultivars even though lentils were already widely cultivated across Southwest Asia during this period appears less extraordinary. Instead, it may be more productive to explore the selection and use of specific cultivars as innovations that were negotiated between local and immigrant actors e. Such a hypothesis could be further explored through contextual analyses of the existing FC material culture record, alongside future fine-grained archaeobotanical sampling of closely controlled archaeological contexts.
A broadly comparable pattern of selective crop adoption has been recently proposed for interpreting the introduction of domesticated crop species at the site of Boncuklu in the Konya plain of central Anatolia during the 11 th millennium cal BP [ 36 ]. A key difference between Boncuklu and FC is that at the former crops were selectively incorporated as minor components in the local hunter-forager economy that apart from nuts, hackberries and, possibly, some wetland plants too exhibited no interest in the intensive exploitation of cereal crop progenitor taxa, despite their modelled wide distribution in the Konya plain during the early Holocene [ 37 ] also suggested by their very sporadic presence in the Boncuklu botanical assemblage [ 36 ].
By contrast, the introduction of domesticated cereal crops and herded caprines at FC in the early 9 th millennium cal BP took place against a background of SLR-induced cumulative habitat erosion that led to the decimation of the traditionally exploited plant and faunal resources. Domesticated cereals and caprines thus acted as catalysts for the reorientation of the local economies, in what was by then a low-yield and ecologically highly fragmented Mediterranean coastal landscape that could no longer sustain the exploitation of wild plants and game as staple foods by human foragers.
The deep history of such processes of selective plant resource adoption and spread can be traced in the increasing circulation of population groups, resources and knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean during the early Holocene. Excavations at Franchthi Cave were conducted between — by T. Jacobsen of Indiana University and M. The archaeobotanical samples generated by these excavations including the wood charcoal specimens reported in this paper were exported in for analysis outside Greece with the permission of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture permit no.
Most archaeobotanical samples from which charcoal macrofossils were available for analysis were retrieved in the field in the s through machine-assisted tank flotation using the local spring water supply. There was no systematic recording of the exact volume of soil processed from each excavation unit [ 14 ].
By modern standards flot mesh size of 0. A minority of archaeobotanical samples had been processed by Jane Renfrew in the excavation season using small-scale bucket flotation. The anthracological specimens available for analysis originated in trenches H1A excavated to a depth of These charcoal samples were retrieved from the UCL stores in and were subsequently studied by Asouti at the Archaeobotany Laboratory of the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool.
A second batch of charcoal samples from H1A , , , —, , —, , —, —, —, , —; including some split samples equivalent to the samples located in the UK , the H1A samples that had been retrieved in using small-scale bucket flotation —, , , —, , —, —, , , the FAS and split samples —, and the FAS samples 73, 75—76, 82, 87, 89, 98, , —, —, , , representing part of the FC Neolithic sequence were deposited at the Department of Anthropology of Boston University.
These charcoal samples were studied by Ntinou under the auspices of the M. These were the only excavation units available for analysis from stratum W2 Lower Mesolithic that had been sampled with large-scale tank flotation.
Hence, their charcoal counts were raised as much as feasible in order to enhance the representativeness of taxon diversity for this segment of the charcoal stratigraphy. Botanical identifications to genus or family level were made using the wood anatomical identification criteria established for European and Eastern Mediterranean arboreal floras.
Select charcoal fragments were also compared to specimens held in modern wood charcoal reference collections in Greece and at Liverpool. Part of microscopy analysis also involved the evaluation of some of the charcoal identifications previously published by Hansen.
Wood charcoals previously reported as Quercus pubescens -type [ 14 ] were found to represent Amygdalus instead. This fact alongside the results of the much more comprehensive anthracological analysis presented in this paper positively disproves previously published claims [ 14 ] for the prevalence of an open oak woodland at FC during the late Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic.
All charcoal fragments identified as Juniperus by the present study exhibited ray height TLS predominantly in the range of 1—4 cells. Based on the ubiquity of this anatomical feature we classified them as Juniperus sp. All Pistacia wood charcoals exhibited ray width TLS predominantly in the range of 2 6 cells. We found no specimens with predominantly narrow rays seriate that would have indicated the presence of Pistacia lentiscus , the species originally proposed by Hansen based on her observations of the surface morphology of charred Pistacia nutlets [ 14 ].
The morphology of Pistacia nutlets is highly variable. Although in principle both P. For this reason, it is more likely that the species represented in the wood and non-wood charred plant assemblage is Pistacia terebinthus.
The distinction drawn between Amygdalus and Prunus has its basis on modern wood anatomical studies that separate between two broad taxonomic groups: 1 Amygdalus webbii , A. The same wood anatomical distinction is replicated in the modern charred wood reference specimens held at Liverpool, including the aforementioned species plus A. Separating Amygdalus from Prunus based on wood anatomy also agrees with previous and more recent botanical and genetic work in the Eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia that treats Amygdalus as a distinct genus from Prunus within the Rosaceae family [ 43 ].
Further separation between individual species of Amygdalus is not possible based on wood anatomy. Wild A. Prunus webbii Spach Vierh. It is thus likely if unprovable that A. Human Dimensions and Sustainability. Clock August 17, Know your planet. Subscribe Stanford Earth Matters Magazine.
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