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Attitudes to altitude: changing meanings and perceptions within a 'marginal'Alpine landscape - the integration of palaeoecological and archaeological datain a high-altitude landscape in the French AlpsKevin Walsh a; Suzi Richer a; J. L. de Beaulieua Department of Archaeology, University of York,

Online Publication Date: 01 September 2006

To cite this Article Walsh, Kevin, Richer, Suzi and de Beaulieu, J. L.(2006)'Attitudes to altitude: changing meanings and perceptionswithin a 'marginal' Alpine landscape - the integration of palaeoecological and archaeological data in a high-altitude landscape in theFrench Alps',World Archaeology,38:3,436 — 454

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Attitudes to altitude: changingmeanings and perceptions within a‘marginal’ Alpine landscape – theintegration of palaeoecological andarchaeological data in a high-altitudelandscape in the French Alps

Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer, with a contributionfrom J.-L. de Beaulieu

Abstract

Research into Alpine archaeology in France has concentrated on the lower altitudes and hasemphasized economic and chrono-typological approaches. Notions of Alpine landscapes asmarginal, defined via discourses imbued with environmental determinism, have informed this type

of archaeology. A multidisciplinary project has studied the history of the presence and absence ofpeople in two adjacent study areas in the Ecrins National Park. Some 240 new sites have beendiscovered, of which nearly forty have been securely dated through excavation. This paper presents

the results from one of these areas. We consider how our evidence can be used not only toreconstruct past economic activities, but also to assess how pre- and proto-historic peoples may haveengaged with this enigmatic and supposedly risky milieu.

Keywords

Alps; France; Mesolithic; Neolithic; Bronze Age; palaeoecology; perception; marginality.

Introduction

Their summits covered with snow merge into the clouds and resemble the foaming

waves of an angry sea. If one admires the courage of those who first risked themselves

World Archaeology Vol. 38(3): 436–454 Archaeology at Altitude

ª 2006 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online

DOI: 10.1080/00438240600813392

Downloaded By: [University of York] At: 12:50 14 February 2009

upon that element, there is room for wonder that anyone dared to venture among the

rocks of these horrible mountains.

(Maximilien Mission 1688, italics added)

The perception of mountains, within the minds both of outsiders and of those who dwelt

within them, has constantly shifted. Different groups within different societies engage with

and perceive landscapes in many different ways. Early modern representations of marginal

landscapes still influence the formation of research questions in a number of disciplines

today. In landscape archaeology, for example, there are a number of environment types

that have not been fully investigated, partly because they are perceived today as

economically marginal and therefore unattractive to earlier societies as well. The way in

which many people engage with Alpine landscapes today is partly informed and influenced

by the works of landscape artists and travel writers working during the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries. The artistic representations of such marginal landscapes often

portray them as stark and sometimes uninviting. One example of such representations is L.

Haghe’s engravings, based on nineteenth-century drawings made by Lord Monson, of the

French Alps (in particular, the areas visited by the Protestant missionary Felix Neff).

Often it is these outsiders’ perceptions of the mountains that we see, rather than the

perceptions of those that lived there. For many people, then, and to a certain extent even

today, this type of landscape is unwelcoming and filled with risk.

Here we examine the archaeological and environmental evidence from a high-altitude

area within the Ecrins National Park in the southern French Alps (Fig. 1). This allows us

to gain an insight into the settlement and activities of the people who were utilizing the

high altitudes on a regular basis. More importantly, we can begin to acquire an idea of

their perception, notions of risk and the relationship between people and the active ‘non-

human’ agents (in the form of trees, plants and animals) within this ‘dark and dangerous’

landscape. Such an approach is primordial in a landscape where human arrival and

settlement were never continuous, but characterized by seasonal and pluriannual ruptures,

rather than the ever-increasing presence that was the case in many other landscape types

around the world.

Until recently, discussions of colonization, or the movements of different pre- and

proto-historic cultural groups into the French Alps, were largely based on the distribution

of objects that were assigned to specific chrono-typological facies (Bocquet 1997). Such

distribution maps are considered to represent movements of peoples, but, in fact, merely

present anonymous, de-humanized distributions that tell us very little about what people

were actually doing in the Alps or how they engaged with the landscape. Moreover, such

maps implicitly define the mountains as a margin that lowland core societies colonize.

Thus, the Alpine zone is by default liminal and other than the lowland core. Bocquet

considers that the ‘colonization’ of the French Alpine zone did not really get under way

until the Middle Neolithic, with incursions from the south moving into ‘virgin’ lands

(Bocquet 1997: 291). A lack of research in the high altitude zones thus gave the impression

of prehistoric, and even protohistoric, peoples just moving around the edges, or perhaps

making incursions along valley bottoms. The Southern French Alps Landscape Project

has studied sites spanning almost the entire Holocene in a high altitude zone, and

demonstrates that some of these earlier assessments of Alpine colonization require

Attitudes to altitude 437


rethinking. In this paper we emphasize the important changes that took place in the Alpine

zone from the Mesolithic through to the Roman period, but with an emphasis on human

engagement with this area during the late second and third millennia BC.

Definition of research problem and review of the study area

Our aim in the past eight years of fieldwork in the Ecrins National Park in the southern

French Alps was to develop an image of how human settlement has waxed and waned in

the mid- to high-altitude zone (1900m and above) throughout the entire Holocene. Few

high-altitude diachronic studies have taken place anywhere in the Alps, although a

number of research projects have considered specific chronological periods in the past

(Bailly-Maıtre and Bruno Dupraz 1994; Bailly-Maıtre 1996; Barge-Mahieu et al. 1998;

Bintz 1999a; Della Casa et al. 1999; Fedele 1992, 1999). While much research into the

prehistory of the northern French Alps, and parts of the Italian Alps, has already taken

place (Bintz et al. 1995; Bintz 1999b; Fedele 1992; Morin 2000; Pion 1998), our

understanding of early prehistoric settlement in the high altitude zones of the southern

French Alps is quite limited. Research that has taken place in France has concentrated on

lower altitudes, towards valley bottoms at 1000 to 1500m (e.g. Muret et al. 1991).

Figure 1 Location of the study area.

438 Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer


Our collaboration with palaeoenvironmentalists, in particular, palynologists, informs

our understanding of the dynamic that exists between people and this harsh landscape

(Segard et al. 2003; Walsh et al. 2005). Our research has revealed that there were periods

when activity in the high-altitude zone was relatively intense and other periods when

people seem to have been absent from these areas, or there was a reduction of human

presence. While we present the evidence from the Freissinieres commune (Fig. 2), it is

important to note that our ‘sister’ project in the Champsaur (directly to the west) direct by

J. Palet-Martinez has produced a similar chronological sequence of sites (Mocci et al.

2006; Palet-Martinez et al. 2003). Between them, these two projects have recorded around

240 new sites. Almost thirty of these sites have been the object of exploratory and/or open

excavations and we have over forty secure dates for these sites or different phases of

activity on the same site.

The synthesis of the archaeology

The fieldwork investigations in the Ecrins comprise prospection and excavation data. In

the Ecrins, stone tools represent pre- and early Holocene peoples across four different

archaeological sites in our study area (see Fig. 2 for the distribution of these sites). The

chronological spread of sites for this period presents us with a rather unfocused or broad

temporal scale. Here, we can only hope to present an image of incursions into high Alpine

zones and the characteristics of the climatic context within which these incursions

took place.

Figure 2 Distribution of dated sites in the Freissinieres study zone.



An epi-Palaeolithic tool (a backed-blade) from Faravel XX (2400m) is an ephemeral,

although enigmatic, piece of evidence for human activity at a high altitude during the

Allerød climatic amelioration. It seems quite plausible that hunters moved into any

accessible zone as soon as the glaciers made an initial retreat about 13,000 years ago. The

evidence for Mesolithic activity in this area is far more substantial; Faravel XIII (Fig. 2)

comprises a scatter of some 400 (149 objects, or fragments, plus 291 pieces of debitage)

pieces of worked Mesolithic flint in an open-air location at 2200m on the Faravel plateau

(Mocci et al. 2006). The assemblage includes microflakes and prepared cores, indicating

that some of the tool production took place on site. Geometric and non-geometric

microliths were produced, as well as geometric points fabricated by the micro-burin

technique. The assemblage includes scrapers and burins, Montbani bladelets, a concave-

truncated trapeze microlith (Montclus trapeze) and elements of Sauveterrian or

Castelnovian points. This Sauveterrian (c. 7000 BC based on tool typologies) site would

have served as a temporary summer hunting camp. Another site, some 200m away,

Faravel XVIII (a surface scatter of 270 flint objects over 300m2) is dated to the end of the

Mesolithic (Castelnovian) period (c. 6000 BC based on tool typologies).

The Neolithic

Traditionally, archaeologists have characterized the Neolithic as the period when many

peoples settled and developed agriculture and an associated sedentary lifestyle. However,

many archaeologists would now contend that this view of the Neolithic is too simplistic

(Tringham 2000). The Neolithic period at Faravel is represented by five flint scatters

dated to the middle Neolithic (based on tool typologies). Faravel XXII yielded twenty-

three pieces of flint, including one medial fragment of a retouched blade, as well as other

blade fragments. Faravel XVII produced flint and one piece of Neolithic pottery. Some

stratified flint was also found on one of the excavated sites. These sites are all situated

on top of drumlins, or, in one instance, on a cliff edge overlooking a lake (Lac de

Fangeas) and grassland some 100 metres below (Fig. 2). In the Chichin Valley, just to

the north west of Faravel, there are two confirmed Neolithic sites comprising small

quantities of worked flint. Despite the fact that this period witnesses the first incursions

of pastoralists into upland alpine pastures in some parts of the Alps (Brochier et al.

1999), the evidence that we have in the Ecrins points to a continuation of short cycles of

hunting activity which we assume took place during the more clement months of the

year.

The late third and second millennia BC (or, Late Neolithic to Bronze Age)

Four sites from Freissinieres, and one site excavated in the summer of 2005 in the next

valley to the north (Vallee du Fournel), have been radiocarbon dated to the period

spanning the second half of the third millennium through to the start of the second

millennium BC. At least ten more structurally comparable sites were found during

prospection across our study zone. Nearly all of these sites possess similar characteristics:

a polygonal enclosure (some 100m2 in area) with a smaller structure just adjacent. We

interpret these smaller zones as living areas for shepherds, although artefacts are rare or



absent in these zones. These structures are always roughly ovoid, or trapezoidal, in form.

The sites are presented in chronological order below.

Chichin III (2200m) is a small, roughly circular structure of about 8m2 (Fig. 3). This site

has been radiocarbon dated to 2580–2400 cal. BC (Poz-5500). Three metres to the south

west of this structure, Chichin IIIa (2460–2200 cal. BC (Poz-5498)) is a relatively large

structure of about 60m2. As with all of these structures, it comprises a zone of large blocks

of rock (from 20cm up to almost 1m in diameter) that delimit a roughly ovoid zone. This

‘wall’ measures between 1m and 3m in thickness. The site of Serre de l’Homme II is quite

Figure 3 Plans and photographs of the Bronze Age structures of Chichin III and IIIa (top) andFaravel XIX (bottom).



different. It comprises an ephemeral stone circle about three metres across, two post-holes

and two burnt zones. The charcoal from one of these areas and charcoal from a post-hole

have been AMS dated to 2580–2340 cal. BC (Poz-13919) and carbon-14 (classical method)

to 2470 BC–2280 cal. BC (Pa-2363). At Faravel, in the Freissinieres commune, a similar site

(Faravel XIX at 2310m) has been dated to 2150–1920 cal. BC (Pa-2209). The only

difference here is that a small internal structure was found within the larger ‘enclosure’.

The entire site covers an area of 100m2. A similar radiocarbon date (2150–1920 cal. BC

(Pa-1841)) was obtained at the Faravel VIIId site at 2200m. While somewhat smaller at

20m2, the shape and construction methods are clearly similar.

The last Bronze Age site in our study area is Chichin II (2070m) (Fig. 4). This site is the

most enigmatic of all those that we have excavated as its architectural characteristics are

quite original. Chichin II comprises a small circular structure of 4.5m2. It sits within what

appears to be a very ephemeral enclosure. It does not appear to have the same kind of

relationship with a substantial enclosure that we see at the other Bronze Age sites. The

excavation of this site also yielded some thirty pieces of worked flint. The majority of

these were found within the circular structure, while a small proportion was found just on

the northern exterior edge of the structure (Fig. 4). The diagnostic elements in this

assemblage possess Neolithic characteristics, while the carbonized wood from the same

layer has been dated to 1540–1410 cal. BC (Poz-5603). It is therefore possible that a

Neolithic artefact facies continued into the second millennium BC in this part of the Alps.

The alternative explanation is that our radiocarbon date reflects a later phase of activity,

although the stratigraphic information tends to support the first hypothesis. Whatever the

reason, we should always be aware of the problems associated with chrono-typologies, not

just in terms of dating associated archaeological features, but also when we make

inferences regarding the nature of economic and social systems with which a site is

supposedly associated. The final element at Chichin II is an abutting square structure.

The stratigraphic relationships between the two elements suggested that this was added on

Figure 4 The Bronze Age site at Chichin II, Freissinieres.



to the Bronze Age site at a later date, and this hypothesis was confirmed by a medieval

radiocarbon date.

The Iron Age and Roman period

In the Freissinieres study area, there is one site dated to the Iron Age period: Faravel

XIIIB comprised three ephemeral post-holes with some charcoal found therein. This

charcoal was dated to 770–400 cal. BC (Pa-2113). For the Roman period, we also have

only one site: Faravel XIV (2450m) is a single small circular structure of about 10m2 and

was radiocarbon dated to 110–130 cal. AD (Pa-2097), a period when the ‘Romanization’ of

the Alps had really only just started.

Although we do not discuss medieval Alpine activity in this contribution, it is useful to

note that there are a large number of medieval sites in our study area. The high Alpine

zone witnessed an impressive increase in the exploitation of mines and pasture from the

thirteenth century onwards, with some precursor sites dating from as early as the seventh

century AD (Mocci et al. 2006; Walsh 2005).

The palaeoecological evidence

The relative dearth of artefactual evidence on many of our sites leads to a reliance on

palaeoecological evidence. However, rather than merely paint an orthodox environmental

(specifically, phytological) background against which changes in the patterns of human

activity have unfolded across our landscape, or recount a history of human impact on the

woodland environment, we wish to consider how such evidence can be used in an

assessment of how people engaged with this enigmatic landscape.

The work in Freissinieres includes both palynology (samples taken from a peat core)

and anthracology (charcoal from the excavated archaeological sites). The palynological

data from a core taken from the peat zone at Fangeas are examined and a brief overview

of the development of the vegetation is presented. While the radiocarbon dates from this

core cover the period from the mid-fifth millennium BC through to the late Roman period,

some inferences regarding the earlier prehistoric and medieval vegetation are possible.

Incorporating the archaeological evidence presented above, we initially present a

traditional, or functional, analysis, before moving on to consider an alternative assessment

of how such data might inform a more ‘sensitive’, or human, account of how people

engaged with this Alpine landscape during the Holocene.

A traditional approach

The pollen core site is situated at 1990m asl on a grassy hillock within an elliptic

depression (see Fig. 2 for location). Four calibrated carbon-14 dates have been obtained

for this diagram. The first zone of the pollen diagram dates to the Early Neolithic period

and the second zone to the transition from the Early- to Mid-Bronze Age, 1740–1520 cal.

BC (Fig. 5). During the Neolithic, the pollen evidence suggests a forested landscape



Figure 5 The Fangeas Pollen Diagram (J.-L. de Beaulieu).



dominated by pine. The zone shows little change, and anthropogenic indicator species

(Behre 1981) are almost non-existent, suggesting that there was little anthropogenic impact

on the forest. In order to contextualize our earlier sites, it is important to note that the

preceding Mesolithic forest would have been quite similar, with a relatively dense tree

canopy in place up to about 2200m asl. Again this would have consisted mostly of pine,

which is typical for this altitude. During the Middle Bronze Age it can be seen that the

levels of tree-pollen were around 80–90 per cent, predominantly composed of Pinus sp.

(450 per cent), particularly P. cembra, Swiss stone pine. With levels as high as these

(although they do begin to fall), it can be taken as fact that pine species were growing at

this altitude during the Bronze Age. However, the peat contained very little evidence of

macro-remains, such as wood or needles, suggesting that the coring site lay at the upper

limit of the tree line, and that there certainly would not have been dense woodland in this

zone. Instead, open woodland would most likely have been present, a conclusion

supported by the evidence for increasing grass and larch levels during this period (de

Beaulieu unpublished).

The Bronze Age structures in the high altitude zone were most probably ‘enclosures’

used either for guarding small flocks intermittently or for protecting ill or injured animals

that made up part of a larger flock (Walsh 2005: 5). The palynological data for this area

suggest that for the Early Bronze Age there was a negligible presence of species indicative

of grazing, such as Plantago and Rumex. However, the presence of these species, in

conjunction with the steady decline in pine and the existence of animal enclosures, suggests

that the area was used for pastoralism in the Early Bronze Age, but either intermittently or

for very small groups of animals. Summer pastoral activity was therefore a new activity,

carried out on a small scale and hence having no more than a small effect on the

environment.

The low rate of peat accumulation in the following pollen zone means that the Iron Age

is barely represented in the pollen diagram. This reduced level of accumulation was

possibly due to climate change, or to a hiatus caused by other processes, perhaps from peat

cutting. Peat cutting at this altitude, and higher, is not unknown, as there is evidence from

Schwarzenstein-Seeli, Austrian Alps, at 2300m of historic peat cutting (J. N. Haas, pers.

comm.). However, the depressed amount of Iron Age activity in this area would suggest

that the hiatus is most likely to have been caused by climatic warming. Initially there is a

considerable drop in arboreal pollen, from around 70 per cent to 30 per cent, followed by a

resurgence to approximately 50 per cent. It is also worth noting at this point that an

increase in Rumex (sorrel) at this period is indicative of an increase in pastoralism.

A similar pattern in the pollen record can be seen in the Italian Alps in Valle Spluga

(Engan and Moe 2005). The interpretation of this event is increased human activity.

However, this intensive phase appears to be directly followed by a phase of decreased

human activity, and this can be seen in the rising levels of tree pollen. The continued

presence of Rumex at this time could be a relict of this phase of intense activity which

perhaps occurred during the later Iron Age and early Roman period, prior to the

‘Romanization’ of this part of the Alps. Although Rumex levels increase due to pastoral

activity (due to an increase in nitrogen in the soil) the plants do not disappear when the

animals stop visiting. In addition, with a decrease in summer farming, the visiting sheep

and/or cattle were no longer eating Rumex, and so the plants were allowed to flower and



produce high levels of pollen. Throughout the Roman Empire, woodland was cleared to

some extent, although the forest was not depleted to the extent that we might imagine (see

papers in Frenzel and Reisch 1994; Grove and Rackham 2001: 174). In fact, the Roman

influence on tree lines varies across the Alps. In some areas an increase in human activity

occurred, accompanied by a decrease in the forest, for example at Lac d’Annecy, France

(Noel et al. 2001), and in Valle Spluga, Italy (Engan and Moe 2005). However, this was

not always the case, and in other (usually higher altitude) areas the tree line can be seen to

have been making a recovery while land use declined during the Roman period (e.g. at

Sagistalsee in the Swiss Alps (Wick et al. 2003) and in the Tyrol (Haas et al. 2005)). Indeed,

Gauthier (2004) suggests that the opening up of the forest tended to occur in areas which

had already witnessed some deforestation and human activity. Therefore, despite the

relative absence of high-altitude sites dating to this period, it is possible that mining and

some pastoral activity were taking place. A number of silver mines are situated at between

1800 and 2200 metres, including one at Fangeas, next to the pollen core site. The increase

in the ratio 206Pb/207Pb found in the pollen core dating to the Roman period might imply

the development of mining activity in the area (Segard 2005), but the taphonomic

problems associated with the movement and dispersal of this isotope should lead us to

question such an interpretation since lead pollution is atmospheric (Renberg et al. 2001).

An alternative approach

The approach taken above has the effect of placing people against an environmental

backdrop where, at best, the environment is read as an element that responds to and/or

influences, economic practices. However, people do not necessarily function as rational

economic beings, especially in a harsh, so-called marginal milieu. The archaeological and

palaeoecological evidence presented thus far demonstrates that the history of human

activity in this part of the European Alps is not one characterized by continuous

settlement, with an initial colonization phase followed by ever increasing activity and

impact on the environment. Settlement in the Alpine zone was characterized by phases of

absence, or reductions in human activity. Moreover, this waxing and waning of activity

cannot be explained by changes in climate: increases in activity corresponding with

climatic amelioration and decreases associated with climatic deterioration (Walsh 2005).

Rather, phases of colonization and retreat from the sub-Alpine and Alpine zones should

be understood in terms of cultural responses and attitudes to this environment or

landscape.

In this final section, we consider the possible relationships that people might have had

with the vegetation in this landscape. There is little doubt that in any environment changes

in forest cover and the composition of the forest would have been one of the defining

characteristics of the landscape for most people. Within an Alpine environment, this is

especially so, due to the relationship between open and closed zones above and below the

changing tree line.

People interact with the environment, both perceptually and physically. Austin suggests

that, ‘for a better understanding of past people-plant relations, it seems necessary to think

of woodland structure as coevolving with the prevailing cultural system rather than being



independent of it’ (2000: 71). The relationship between people and plants/trees is often

discussed economically, but other aspects, such as the social and perceptual, have often

been ignored (Austin 2000: 65). However, it is encouraging that it is increasingly

recognized that nature is not something that is merely inscribed upon by people (Jones and

Cloke 2002: 6). With the rejection of the idea that people are detached from the

environment, also comes the rejection of the ‘Cartesian’ notion of culture and nature as

separate entities. It is important to recognize agency beyond purely humanity. For

example, vegetation and animals can have agency. This ‘non-human’ agency will, however,

inevitably be associated with people, as it will be people who will respond to and interact

with the non-human element (Jones and Cloke 2002: 47). Ingold (1997: 244–5) takes this

idea further and suggests that, if people, animals and plants all inhabit the same world,

they are therefore all involved within a relational context of mutual involvement. In other

words, people ‘play their part alongside beings of other kinds’ rather than being separated

from them. If an approach such as this is taken, whereby people are embedded in place

and hence within the natural environment, nature and culture become inextricably linked.

Also, through participation, interpretation and mediation, the natural world is made

meaningful (Giddens 1984) and thus trees can be considered as symbols and metaphors as

much as physical entities (Austin 2000: 66) (Plate 1). With these ideas in mind, we return

then to the pollen diagram and examine it from a slightly different perspective so that

other possible interpretations become possible.

The Neolithic high altitudes, and undoubtedly those of the Mesolithic, were

characterized by a wooded landscape, comprised mostly of pine. Although these forests

would not have been as dense as their northern European counterparts, they would still

have retained attributes such as reduced visibility and hearing. With the addition of

mountain animals, such as bears, wolves and lynx, and the reduction in sight and sound, a

densely wooded landscape would have been a dangerous place in which to live. However,

the archaeological evidence demonstrates that people were coming up to these altitudes

during the Mesolithic, and were probably hunting. Despite the fact that the higher

altitudes were wooded, they would have had less forest cover than the valleys, perhaps

making them a ‘safer’ place. The edge of the forest may have been interrupted by small

lakes and rocky outcrops, making the higher altitudes attractive to game, and hence for

hunting. While modernity witnessed the portrayal of these landscapes as mysterious and

forbidding, they may not have been so in the past. The familiarity that people had with

their landscapes, either through real experience or through the transmission of traditions

and stories, meant that they had a very different mental map of these landscapes (Brody

2002).

Neolithic peoples may well have attached values to the Alpine zone. Low-altitude

agricultural/domestic landscapes were imbued with meaning via tombs and other

monuments, where encounters with ancestors were controlled (Thomas 1990: 175). This

domestic landscape, where ancestors were ever present, thus structured relationships with

the environment, and distant undomesticated landscapes without monuments and

ancestors must have been perceived in a very different way. If we accept Lewis-Williams

and Pearce’s (2005) assertion that ancestors may well have been thought to travel from the

depths of the cosmos to the sky, close to where rare and important materials were gathered

(such as stone for axes), then the undomesticated margins, including the densely forested



Alpine zone, may well have been considered as an obscure, although valued, tier within the

Neolithic world. The animals that were probably hunted in the southern French Alps

during this period may well have been another valued element within this cosmos. During

the Mesolithic, Neolithic and then the Bronze Age, perhaps the most important

characteristic of vegetation will have been its mutability, the constant changes associated

with the cycle of the seasons. Budding, flowering, changes in leaf colour and the shedding

of leaves are representations of fundamental changes within any landscape. Within Alpine

landscapes such changes are even more poignant as they represent changes in the food

gathering and food production cycles within the different horizontal (altitudinal) zones.

They are thus related to the cycle of human movement between the different altitudes,

whether these movements are related to the pursuit of game during the Mesolithic and

Neolithic, or to the movement to different pastures as part of the transhumant cycle which

started during the late third and second millennia BC.

Plate 1 Example of a tree form that can easily obtain meaning and agency within the Alpinelandscape (photo: S. Richer).



The Early Bronze Age marks a major change in the overall structure of the Alpine

forest. There was a decline in birch and pine, and the establishment and subsequent

increase in larch. These changes may all be associated with a change to a warmer and drier

climate, thus facilitating pastoral activity at these altitudes (or increasing the potential

length of the high-altitude pastoral season). This trend in the change of species

composition is also recognized in the charcoal data from Faravel VIIId, whereby birch

represents only 2 per cent, and at Faravel XIX almost all of the species exploited are

different species of pine. On face value this suggests that people were utilizing the species

closest to them. But what does this information tell us about the perception of this

environment?

First, if we look at the characteristics of the species present, it is worth noting the

increasing presence of larch. This is a unique species in the Alps as it is a deciduous

conifer. Among a sea of evergreen confers, this landscape was becoming increasingly

dominated by a tree which emphasized the change in seasons. In this respect the tree can

be seen as having agency in that its seasonality can change the very nature of a place (Jones

and Cloke 2002: 88–98). As well as marking time, the seasonal changing of the needles

would also have reinforced the natural cycles that would have been playing an increasing

role at this time with domestication, witnessed in this landscape by the increase in pastoral

activity. With a warming in temperature, and the dominance of a seasonal tree within a

landscape of evergreens, these high altitudes may have been perceived as being more in

tune with the developing seasonality of life. Although the seasons would have affected the

hunting activity in the previous periods, the Bronze Age is the period when we begin to see

structures appearing in the archaeological record in the Alps, probably associated with a

semi-permanent, seasonal pastoral activity (Segard et al. 2003: 24–6). The seasons were

actively fused with the rhythms of activity.

Second, the charcoal assemblage demonstrates that it was not just one species that

was exploited, but rather a range of species, including those that were becoming rarer.

This can be seen by looking more closely at the presence of birch in both the pollen and

charcoal diagrams. At the time when birch (Betula) was becoming severely reduced in

the pollen diagram (top of zone 1), it continues to have a presence in the charcoal

assemblage, albeit only 2 per cent at Faravel VIIId. This may imply that the reduction in

birch (probably to just a few isolated stands) was not a noticeable trend over the course

of a lifetime, or, if it was observed, there appears to have been no reason to try to

‘preserve’ the species as it appears to have continued to be used. Also, in a landscape

that was probably still dominated by pine species, it seems strange that this tree was

contributing only 12 per cent of the charcoal at Faravel VIIId, compared to 85 per cent

of spruce/larch. A simplistic explanation might be that a stand of spruce/larch may have

grown close to the site and was therefore used. Another explanation is that pine pollen

may be over-represented in the pollen diagram, due its large-scale production and

dispersal, and therefore that pine may not have dominated the landscape in the way

portrayed by the pollen diagram.

An alternative explanation can be found if we turn to the burning properties of the

spruce/larch. It can be seen that spruce is thought to burn too quickly in comparison to

other woods (The Scout Association 1999), and would therefore not be a sensible choice

of wood for the creation of a fire purely for its heat, especially if pine was more freely



available. Alternatively, larch is considered to produce a good heat and it also produces

a scent. In the light of this information it would seem most likely that the spruce/larch

category was predominantly larch. The two other species that are present in the charcoal

assemblage (but are either absent or becoming rare in the pollen diagram) are birch and

juniper. Birch is also known to produce a pleasant smell (The Scout Association 1999)

and one of the main reasons for burning juniper in the past was to produce a highly

aromatic smoke (Kendall 2003). Based on these facts, it would seem that the choice of

wood for burning may have been made based upon aromatic qualities rather than

availability.

Aromas may have been important either for the effect the smell may have caused or for

the smell itself. For example, in the past the burning of juniper in central Europe was an

activity that was carried out as part of wider spring-time cleansing (Kendall 2003).

Similarly, in areas of the Swiss Alps at the turn of the twentieth century juniper was put in

cattle byres to ward off evil spirits (Lans and De Meester 1997). If juniper was being used

in a similar way (to purify and protect) in the Bronze Age, this may indicate that the same

respect and ritualistic aspects were just as important for high-altitude ‘intermittent’

settlements as for the lower, more permanent settlements. Within a more generalized

context, maybe it should be asked why the aroma was important. The smells may have had

the effect of enhancing the natural smells of the environment, and hence of embedding

people within the landscape at a deeper level. They would have literally been inhaling

nature, in which case, the separation between nature and culture that we see today would

have become blurred to the point of non-existence.

The relationship between the forest and mining would also have been important.

While we have no direct evidence for Bronze Age mining in our valley, mining was

obviously important across the Alps, and Bronze Age copper mines are known from the

southern French Alps (Barge et al. 1998). The presence of mines in forested areas and

the use of wood in the smelting process would all have been connected with the magic-

religious significance of transforming ore into new striking objects (Kristiansen and

Larsson 2005: 53). Kristiansen and Larsson thus consider that, once we accept this

relationship, ‘we can more profitably begin to understand the landscape as a structured

cosmos’ (2005: 356). In their ‘centred’ world, with villages and their ritual buildings

comprising the core, the uncivilized world is comprised of mountains and forests where

dangerous activities such as mining and hunting took place. In ‘decentred’ cosmologies,

such stark differences between culture and nature are less important, or are quite

different to those that existed in centred cosmologies. This world would have been

ordered horizontally, and movement between the different zones of the landscape (from

village to distant parts of the landscape) was invited (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005:

358–9). In either case, mountain environments, whether ‘uncivilized’ or not, were an

important element within the Bronze Age landscape and cosmos. The difference between

the Bronze Age and the preceding millennia would appear to be one of emphasis on the

importance of mountain environments.

For the Iron Age and Roman periods, the archaeological and environmental evidence is

somewhat ambiguous and, in some sense, the two datasets diverge. Archaeological sites

are at their fewest in this period, but in the late Iron Age/early Roman period the tree

cover drops dramatically and the level of Rumex (sorrel) increases, indicating intensive



pastoral activity. However, as noted above, this may be due to the ability of these plants to

flourish while little grazing is actually taking place.

Many urban Romans had a very different attitude to the Alps, with the mountains

and their forests seen as forbidding and dangerous (see Walsh 2005). However, those

people who did live and work in the alpine zone were not necessarily Roman or

Romanized. Some activity in the high-altitude areas must have continued, even if

Gallo-Roman populations were attracted to the newly developed urban centres and

their associated axes of communication. In some ways, the culture/nature divide that

underpins modern Western notions of environment and landscape has its origins in the

classical conception of the world and humanity’s relationship with it (see Westra and

Robinson 1997). Such changes may have resulted in a Roman view of the high-Alpine

zone that was radically different from that which existed during the preceding

millennia.

Conclusions

After eight years of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research within the southern

French Alps, we believe that we can now present a plausible assessment of the changes in

the levels and in the nature of human activity at altitudes above 1900m. There is no doubt

that climate change was not the primary process influencing these changes in settlement

and activity. A complex series of enmeshed cultural and economic changes from the

Mesolithic through to the Roman period led to wide diachronic variations in the nature of

human activity, and perhaps even in the number of people, living and working in the high-

Alpine zone. One of the defining characteristics of this landscape has always been the

forest. People had not only an ‘economic’ relationship with the forest (use of trees, a home

for animals and so on) but also a cultural one, that was, in fact, inseparable from the

economic relationship. These changes in the cultural ecological relationships that

people had with the forest and the mountains were never characterized via notions of

marginality that became so typical with modernity. Even if such spaces were seen as

liminal, there is no doubt that Alpine landscapes were an important element in prehistoric

and protohistoric cosmoses.

Acknowledgements

This project is co-directed with F. Mocci (CNRS, Centre Camille Jullian) and we enjoy

the continued support of both P. Leveau and P. Columeau (Centre Camille Jullian). The

following specialists have made essential contributions to our research in the Alps. The

study of flint material was undertaken by S. Tzortzis (Ville de Martigues) and C. Bressy

(Universite Joseph Fourrier, Grenoble), J.-P. Bracco and A. D’Anna (Economies,

Societes, Environnements Prehistoriques, UMR 6636, Aix-en-Provence), and that of the

ceramic material by L. Vallauri (Laboratoire d’Archeologie Mediterraneenne Medievale,

UMR 6572, Aix-en-Provence). Charcoal analysis was undertaken by A. Durand

(Laboratoire d’Archeologie Mediterraneenne Medievale, UMR 6572, Aix-en-Provence)



and B. Talon (Faculte de St Jerome, Universite de Provence), Vanessa Py (l’Universite

d’Aix-Marseille I) and palynological work by J.-L. de Beaulieu (Institut Mediterraneen

d’Ecologie et de Paleoecologie). The Parc Nationale des Ecrins and the Service Regionale

pour l’Archeologie (PACA) must also be thanked for their continued support of this

project.

Department of Archaeology, University of York

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Kevin Walsh is a lecturer in landscape archaeology at the University of York. He has been

directing and co-directing collaborative projects (with the Centre Camille Jullian, CNRS/

Universite de Provence and the Institut Mediterraneen d’Ecologie et de Paleoecologie) in

the French Alps for the last eight years.

Suzi Richer is a PhD student at the University of York and the Institut Mediterraneen

d’Ecologie et de Paleoecologie. Her research is concerned with palynological and

archaeological work in the French Alps.



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