Holocene Vegetation Dynamics and First Land-Cover Estimates in the Auvergne Mountains (Massif Central, France): Key Tools to Landscape Management

Miras, Yannick; Mariani, Michela; Ledger, Paul M.; Mayoral, Alfredo; Chassiot, Léo; Lavrieux, Marlène

doi:10.24916/iansa.2018.2.5

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…On the other hand, the fir trees used in the Massif Central at the same time show an opposite profile: larger diameters and ages, i.e., forests that are opening up and less frequent felling. This is confirmed by pollen studies carried out in several places in the Massif Central, which indicate a clear decline in forest areas in favour of the extension of agro-pastoral activities [51,53]. The highland landscape is therefore open with heterogeneous forest areas.…”

Section: Assumptions and Attempts To Reconstruct Silvicultural Practicesmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Larch is mainly found in the cities of the south-east, in the Alpes-Maritimes [13,50]. Anthropogenic pressure is constant at high altitude [51][52][53], limiting wooded areas to those that are steep, difficult to access and unsuitable for agropastoral activities. Ancient texts and archaeological findings attest to the exportation of Alpine larch to the plains in ancient times for shipbuilding [15,54] and in medieval times for building [17].…”

Section: Locally Used and Exported Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Forest Exploitation and Wood Supply: A Dendroarchaeological Approach between the Massif Central and the Southern Alps since the Middle Ages

Shindo

Blondel

Labbas

2022

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Numerous dendroarchaeological studies have been carried out in buildings in the south-eastern quarter of France, which has enabled us to lay the foundations for a first regional restitution of forest stands in the medieval and modern periods, based on the species, diameters, ages and growth rhythms of the trees used by humans. The 2369 pieces of dated softwood timber are mainly larch and fir from the Massif Central and the Alps mountains. Larch seems to have been used mostly locally in the Alps, whereas fir was certainly exported from the two regions to the lowland towns. Very little felling has been identified in the historically troubled 13th–14th century. For the moment we have not identified any fir trees used before the 15th century in the Alps, whereas they are present in the Massif Central from the 12th century. Growth of fir timbers show little variation over time while larch timbers present an increase in growth between those felled until the 12th century and those felled from the 15th century onwards. Finally, since firs from the Massif Central show a higher age trend than those from the Alps, this can serve as a model for identifying the source forests of the timber used in the Rhône valley.

show abstract

Section: Assumptions and Attempts To Reconstruct Silvicultural Practicesmentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Locally Used and Exported Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest Exploitation and Wood Supply: A Dendroarchaeological Approach between the Massif Central and the Southern Alps since the Middle Ages

Shindo

Blondel

Labbas

2022

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1A and 7B), a generalized practice of agriculture is documented from the Early Middle Ages until the late XIX th century. Agro-pastoral activities in the region were accompanied with a significant deforestation, with forest cover falling to 15-45% at the regional level (Miras et al, 2018). The importance of agriculture over the same period was later confirmed by the multi-proxy study of the Lake Aydat sediment record (Lavrieux et al, 2013a(Lavrieux et al, , 2013b.…”

Section: Natural Versus Anthropogenic Signals On Sediment Yield Recordsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Anthropogenic versus natural control on lacustrine sediment yield records from the French Massif Central

Chassiot

Simonneau

Chapron

et al. 2022

Quaternary International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…A conceivable establishment of a summary pollen diagram and anthropogenic impact phases for the Erzgebirge, as published in the synthesis of many diagrams, for example, for the Šumava Mountains, Czech Republic, or the Auvergne Mountains (Miras et al, 2018;Kozáková et al, 2022) and the Morvan Mountains, both in France (Jouffroy-Bapicot et al, 2013), respectively, has failed so far due to the lack of digitally available palynological raw data (pollen counts) and well radiometrically dated diagrams.…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holocene forest and land-use history of the Erzgebirge, central Europe: a review of palynological data

Kaiser

Theuerkauf

Hieke

2023

E&G Quaternary Sci. J.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The ongoing ecological conversion of mountain forests in central Europe from widespread Picea monocultures to mixed stands conceptually also requires a historical perspective on the very long-term, i.e. Holocene, vegetation and land-use dynamics. Detailed sources of information for this are palynological data. The Erzgebirge in focus here, with a maximum height of 1244 m a.s.l., represents an extreme case of extensive historical deforestation since the Middle Ages due to mining, metallurgy, and other industrial activities, as well as rural and urban colonisation. For this regional review we collected and evaluated 121 pollen diagrams of different stratigraphic, taxonomic, and chronological resolution. This number makes this region an upland area in central Europe with an exceptionally high density of palynological data. Using well-dated diagrams going back to the early Holocene, main regional vegetation phases were derived: the Betula–Pinus phase (ca. 11 600–10 200 cal yr BP), the Corylus phase (ca. 10 200–9000 cal yr BP), the Picea phase (ca. 9000–6000 cal yr BP), the Fagus–Picea phase (ca. 6000–4500 cal yr BP), the Abies–Fagus–Picea phase (ca. 4000–1000 cal yr BP), and the anthropogenic vegetation phase (ca. 1000–0 cal yr BP). Some diagrams show the presence or even continuous curves of potential pasture and meadow indicators from around 2000 cal BCE at the earliest. Even cereal pollen grains occur sporadically already before the High Medieval. These palynological indications of a local prehistoric human impact also in the higher altitudes find parallels in the (geo-)archaeologically proven Bronze Age tin placer mining and in the geochemically proven Iron Age metallurgy in the Erzgebirge. The pollen data show that immediately before the medieval clearing, i.e. beginning at the end of the 12th century CE, forests were mainly dominated by Fagus and Abies and complemented by Picea with increasing share towards the highest altitudes. According to historical data, the minimum of the regional forest cover was reached during the 17th–18th centuries CE. The dominance of Picea in modern pollen spectra is caused by anthropogenic afforestation in the form of monocultures since that time. Future palynological investigations, preferably within the framework of altitudinal transect studies, should aim for chronologically and taxonomically high-resolution and radiometrically well-dated pollen diagrams from the larger peatlands.

show abstract

Holocene Vegetation Dynamics and First Land-Cover Estimates in the Auvergne Mountains (Massif Central, France): Key Tools to Landscape Management

Cited by 5 publications

References 27 publications

Forest Exploitation and Wood Supply: A Dendroarchaeological Approach between the Massif Central and the Southern Alps since the Middle Ages

Forest Exploitation and Wood Supply: A Dendroarchaeological Approach between the Massif Central and the Southern Alps since the Middle Ages

Anthropogenic versus natural control on lacustrine sediment yield records from the French Massif Central

Holocene forest and land-use history of the Erzgebirge, central Europe: a review of palynological data

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About