Holocene Land Use Dynamics in the Western Mediterranean: a Regional Approach to Domestication Economies

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With National Science Foundation support Dr. Michael Barton and his team of international collaborators will excavate four prehistoric (Mesolithic and Neolithic) settlements in upland valleys of the Rio Serpis, a major drainage system in Alciante province of Spain. The goal of the work is to understand the transition from a hunting and gathering to an agricultural subsistence mode and the project builds on nearly a decade of prior research, primarily in the form of intensive, landscape oriented archaeological survey. Excavations will take place over the course of two summer field seasons, each focusing on one hunting and gathering (Mesolithic) and one agricultural (Neolithic) site. Each site will be grided and surface artifacts systematically collected. Surface artifact densities and features will be used to create a sampling design and an integrated field strategy using auger coring, backhoe trenching and hand excavation will be employed to acquire information about the density and distribution of cultural materials (including artifacts, floral and faunal remains) features, paleoenvironmental indicators and radiocarbon samples. GIS databases will be developed. In conjunction with regional data this information will be used to reconstruct changes in subsistence, social and spatial organization over time. The team will also examine the effect of these behavioral changes on the landscape.The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is one of the most significant in the human past, and its repercussions are still felt today. With the advent of agricultural economies, humans began to experience widespread sedentism, urban life, and social complexity with multiple ramifications: social ranking and stratification, occupational specialization, centralized political power and organized warfare. Only after humans become dependent on agricultural economies did the human impact on the environment result in massive, long term or permanent changes in vegetation communities, denudation and anthropogenic soil changes. While this transition has long been a focus for archaeological research, the factors which underlie it are still poorly understood. This research should shed additional light.