Loessic Landscapes and Past Population’s use: a Multidisciplinary Approach
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-11-09

This research focus on the relationship between human communities (from the Neolithic to the 15th Century) and the European loessic landscapes. Through the use of a GIS and a relational database both filled with archaeological (mainly information about sites) and environmental data (such as pedological maps and information, geomorphological analysis, DEM, etc.), I study the way humans exploit their surrounding landscape and its consequences. I would like to present my PhD’s first results, which focus on the long term occupation and exploitation of the loessic landscape known as the Kochersberg in Alsace (France). The strength of human pressure on the landscape has evolved from the first implantations around the Neolithic to the establishment of the villages as we know them around the fifteenth Century. I use both archaeological and environmental data to figure out the potential impact of this pressure to the landscape. Of course, GIS is an essential tool to link those two different kind of data with the actual landscape in which they occur. I would also like to approach a key aspect of the human impact on its environment, which is taphonomy. Indeed, process that can be triggered by human exploitation, such as erosion, impact the way archaeological remains are preserved. This open question needs to be addressed in order to understand the repartition maps and the site conservation better.

(Charlène Morel)