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Título
Environment and Plant Use at la Tourasse (South-West France) at the Late Glacial-Holocene Transition
Autor(es)
Materia
Archaeobotany
Firewood
Plant economy
Late Glacial
Azilian
Mesolithic
Southwest France
Arqueobotánica
Leña
Economía vegetal
Último Máximo Glacial
Aziliense
Mesolítico
Suroeste de Francia
Clasificación UNESCO
5505.01 Arqueología
5504.05 Prehistoria
Fecha de publicación
2023
Editor
De Gruyter
Citación
Liard, A., Martínez-Varea, C. M., Orange, F., Huot, J.-P., Marquebielle, B., & Henry, A. (2023). Environment and Plant Use at La Tourasse (South-West France) around the Late-Glacial—Holocene Transition. Open Archaeology, 9(1), 20220292.
Resumen
The aim of this study is to present new data on vegetation dynamics and plant collecting practices during the Late Glacial and the Early Holocene in southwestern France. La Tourasse cave is located in the Pyrenean piedmont plain, where the Azilian cultural complex was initially defined. The last excavations of the site took place in the 1980s and 1990s and the recovered materials are currently being studied or revisited from a multidisciplinary perspective. We present here the results of the charcoal analysis performed on La Tourasse’s Azilian (ca. 13000–11500 cal. BP) and Mesolithic (ca. 10500–9000 cal. BP) levels, complemented by the study of a small seed assemblage. Our results document the shift from an open landscape towards a forested environment, with the gradual passage from open vegetation dominated by shrubs of the Rose family (Prunus spp.) to the mixed oak forest, which speaks in favor of the biochronological coherence of this sequence. However, marked differences in taxonomic richness and state of the wood from one level to another, unrelated to the prevailing environmental conditions, suggest variable behavior of humans toward wood that could be the result of differing mobility strategies, hearth functionalities, or taxonomic preferences.
URI
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0292
Versión del editor
Colecciones
- PREHUSAL. Artículos [41]