ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS AND THE EVOLUTION OF LANDSCAPE IN THE LAST 10 000 YEARS

The abundant palaeoecological and geo-historical records for Western Iberia allow us to understand the major drivers of environmental change for the last 10 000 years (i.e. the Holocene). Regarding the trends of vegetation, data comes primarily from investigation in palynology and archaeobotany, but molecular approaches have also been determinant to understand patterns of plant migration and human introductions.
The general scenario we get from such a multidisciplinary approach is that of a shift from climatic driven trends to anthropogenic dynamics mostly related to trends in technology and social organization. In this talk we will present a broad state of the art, highlighting some investigation taking place in ENVARCH (Environmental Archaeology).

João Pedro Tereso is an archaeobotanist working at CIBIO-InBIO since 2008. He is a post doc investigator with a degree in History-Archaeology and a PhD in Biology. He has focused his investigation in the relation between social trends and environmental changes in the last 10 000 years by giving a particular emphasis on the evolution of agricultural systems. In the scope of his work he has carried out and supervised charcoal analysis and carpological studies from numerous Iberian archaeological sites, covering several chronologies, from the Palaeolithic to the Napoleon Wars.

[Group Leader: Simon Davis, Environmental Archaeology]

Image credits: João Tereso