EUROPEAN LANDUSE AT 6000 BP: FROM ON-SITE DATA TO THE LARGE-SCALE VIEW
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 15/01/2021

The LandCover6K Working group is concerned with the question of whether prehistoric human impacts on land cover (i.e. anthropogenic land cover change due to land use) were sufficiently large to have had a major impact on regional climates. Climate model simulations have shown that land use data sets can have large regional impacts on climate in the recent past and may have also done so during prehistory. However, there are major differences between the current available land use models (e.g. HYDE and KK10) and reconstructions based on pollen analysis. The only way to provide a useful assessment of the potential for land use changes to affect past climate is to input land use models such as HYDE with more realistic land cover and land use changes based on palaeo-vegetation (land cover) and archaeological evidence (land use).
We present preliminary results from a recent initiative that has reconstructed land use for parts of the European continent (encompassing areas north of Greece, north up to Fennoscandia and Ireland, east as far as Russia) at 6000 BP,using asynthesis of land use patterns derived from the archaeological record. We examineplant and animal exploitation, farming and landscape management strategies and,where available,the intensity of these strategies for the time period. The location of settlements, field systems, and other activitiesare also discussed where available. We discuss some of the challenges of developing generalised land use categories within a European context, identify regions for which we have good datasets and identify where there are major gaps in our understanding.We also present a pilot study of first order,top-level land use maps for selected regions of Europe.
References:
HYDE: History Database for the Global Environmen thttp://themasites.pbl.nl/tridion/en/themasites/hyde/KK10: The KK10 global scenario of anthropogenic land cover change over the Holocene. https://www.unil.ch/idyst/en/home/menuinst/research-topics/natural-and-anthropogenic-ec/atmosphere-regolith-vegetati/the-kk10-global-scenario-of.html


Whitehouse, Nicki (School of Geography, Earth and Environment, University of Plymouth) - Antolin, Ferran (Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science, University of Basel) - Bishop, Rosie (UCD School of Archaeology) - Styring, Amy (Institutfür Archäologische Wissenschaften, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main) - Vander Linden, Marc (Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge) - Kolar, Jan (Department of Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences) - Madella, Marco (CaSEs Research Group, Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; ICREA)