Journal
HOLOCENE
Volume 23, Issue 1, Pages 127-136Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/0959683612455547
Keywords
Azilian; charcoal analysis; hunter-gatherers; Mesolithic; southwestern France; woody environment
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Charred wood analyses have been performed on three Mesolithic sites located on the Causse de Gramat, a karstic plateau in southwestern France (Lot department): Les Fieux, les Escabasses and le Cuzoul de Gramat. The sites yielded occupations dating from the early to the late Mesolithic (9th to the 6th millennia cal. BC). In the absence of palynological data, charcoal analysis allowed us to characterise the woody environment exploited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Our results point at the minor place of softwoods in the landscape and the local importance of Rosaceae prunoideae, marking an original type of pre-forest vegetation. In order to retrace the local vegetation dynamics, these results are synthesized and discussed thanks to a correspondence analysis, which includes previous anthracological data from Azilian and middle Mesolithic levels of two other sites of the Causse. The homogeneity of the results speaks in favour of the stability of the local environment and confirms the specific vegetation features of the area.
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