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Holocene pollen stratigraphy and human interference in the woodlands of the northern Apennines, Italy

Centre for Quaternary Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK

C. Davite

ARAN Progetti, Via Fieschi 3/15, 16100 Genova, Italy

Diego Moreno

Dipartimento di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea, Universita di Genova, Via Balbi 6, 16126 Genova, Italy

Roberto Maggi

Soprintendenza Archeologica della Liguria, Museo Archeologico di Chiavari, via Costaguta 4, 16043 Chiavari, Genova, Italy

Pollen-stratigraphic data and radiocarbon dates are presented for a full Holocene series of sediment cores obtained from a high-level site in the Appennino Parmense, northern Italy. Three 'marker' horizons are identified on the basis of sediment changes and pollen stratigraphy, and the extent to which they indicate episodes of significant human interference in the local vegetation is discussed. The earliest (M1) is dated to around 6300 BP. From the pollen evidence, some form of human impact on the regional vegetation at this time is suspected, but there is no convincing archaeological evidence to support this. The pollen evidence from the second (M2: 5000-4000 BP) and third (M3: ca. 1400 BP) marker horizons is consistent with archaeological information in suggesting that the high parts of the Apennines, close to the tree-line, were subject to intense summer grazing during the late Neolithic through to the Copper Age, and the immediate post-Roman period. A review of archaeological and documentary evidence from the region is presented to demonstrate how an integration of these lines of research on the one hand, with pollen-stratigraphic studies on the other, may provide a better understanding of the pattern and intensity of land-use changes during the mid- to late-Holocene.

Key Words: Northern Apennines • Mesolithic • Neolithic • Roman period • medieval period • land-use history • pollen analysis • vegetation history • human impact • archaeology.

The Holocene, Vol. 4, No. 2, 153-164 (1994)
DOI: 10.1177/095968369400400205


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