The changing face of the Mediterranean – Land cover, demography and environmental change: Introduction and overview

Abstract

This paper introduces a special issue on The Changing Face of the Mediterranean: Land Cover, Demography, and Environmental Change, which brings together up-to-date regional or thematic perspectives on major long-term trends in Mediterranean human–environment relations. Particularly, important insights are provided by palynology to reconstruct past vegetation and land cover, and archaeology to establish long-term demographic trends, but with further significant input from palaeoclimatology, palaeofire research and geomorphology. Here, we introduce the rationale behind this pan-Mediterranean research initiative, outline its major sources of evidence and method, and describe how individual submissions work to complement one another.

Dendrochronological dates confirm a Late Prehistoric population decline in the American Southwest derived from radiocarbon dates

“…We averaged probability distributions of binned dates and then constructed SPDs from the resulting site-phase probability distributions. 1 We treated the tree-ring dates in as similar a way possible to the radiocarbon dates. We modelled faux-calibrated tree-ring date probabilities as discrete degenerate distributions (Pr(X = k 0 ) = 1), with k 0 equal to the tree-ring date-in other words, a probability of 1 at the date value and 0 elsewhere.…”

The concept of socio-environmental transformations in prehistoric and archaic societies in the Holocene: An introduction to the special issue

“…The dynamics of human–environmental relationships have also become a central focus in current debates through the perilous consequences of human-induced alteration, pollution and destruction of natural landscapes, which are transforming both the environment and human societies to a hitherto unprecedented extent. Archaeology, with its long-term temporal perspective on human societies and landscapes, is in a unique position to trace and link comparable phenomena in the past, to study human involvement with the natural environment, human impact on nature and the consequences of the various dimensions of environmental change on human societies (Bevan et al, 2019; Deák et al, 2018; Hansson et al, 2018; Ledger et al, 2015; Müller, 2018; O’Brien and Shennen, 2010; Rowley-Conwy and Layton, 2011; Shennan, 2009; Walsh et al, 2019; Widlok et al, 2012; Zimmermann, 2012). Archaeology has the means to contrast major transformations with minor changes, rapid transitions with continuous modifications, transient with enduring changes, periods of more stable relations with the occurrence of crises, and restoration with collapse.…”

Shaping Mediterranean landscapes: The cultural impact of anthropogenic fires in Tyrrhenian southern Tuscany during the Iron and Middle Ages (800–450 BC / AD 650–1300)

“…Palaeoenvironmental researches are the fundamental resources used by natural sciences to investigate cultural landscape progression. The study approaches make use of data garnered from pollen and charred wood fragments, with the contribution of other biostratigraphical, geomorphological and isotopic studies, in order to reconstruct the evolution of the past vegetation landscape and affecting fire sequences (Bevan et al, 2019; Conedera et al, 2009; Mercuri and Sadori, 2014; Scott and Damblon, 2010; Zanchetta et al, 2013).…”

“…Recently, an important review involving pollen records (past vegetation), stable isotopes (climate), archaeological site surveys and C14 dates (long-term population change), has highlighted landscape changes in seven different Mediterranean regions by human and natural agencies during the past ten millennia (Bevan et al, 2019). This study suggests that human actions were relevant on land cover after ca.…”