Re: De/Transforestation at the NW. European Neolith/Mesolithic boundary
- From: prd <X_header@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:06:00 GMT
In sci.archaeology message news:ech23t$lnp$1@xxxxxxxxx by "Uwe
Müller" <uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> . . . :
Obviously soil can be restored, but it takes much effort than
the
casual effort to destroy it that is part of crop raising,
In Neolithic harvesting only the ears were cut off, suposedly
the cattle where then driven on the fields to graze off the rest
of the plants. This would lead to considerable amounts of dung
to be dumped on the fields. As the primary settlements in the
early neolithic are stable for hundreds of years, and the area
utilised for farming must have been inside walking distance from
the settlement, the loss of nutrients from the ground could not
have the devastating effects you describe.
But in the paper you presented this appears to be what happened
the settlement became overpopulated, all the arable land was used
and then the population collapsed. Probably the use of marginal
lands was to intensive and quickly lost productivity.
Most pine trees are growing roots that will dig deep into the
earth, securing water and nutrients. Oak otoh grows only shallow
roots, but lots of them. Oaks are quite finicky if theire roots
are cut or damaged.
Yes, but the problem is if you slash and burn several times over a
millenium you have drawn the nutrients up from the depths and
depleted them from the depths. If you have depleted from the depths
the soil be restored from the surface, through composting and
bioturbulation and leaching.
Which is the one thing we do not have for the early
neolithisation. In a matter of a few generations neolithic
settlements were set up, so fast in fact, that no major change
could be seen between settlements hundreds of miles apart.
Yeah but they have the immediate benefit of a pristine ecosystem
with areas of underutilize organic soils from recent floods, etc.
The basis of the human neolithic equation is.
Given
1. Cattle culture
2. Wheat culture
3. Time
Humans can advance into increasingly colder climates.
The basis of the human ecololigical equation.
Given
1. climate changes
2. nutrients escape.
3. bad timing
Humans advancements can retract to fractional levels
in a semipredictable manner (see curse above). This
product of the second equation is known but not understood
6000 years ago or so. IOW not long after this neolitization
took off in the middle east.
You should take care about the dates, 6000 years ago is roughly
4000 BCE. That is long after neolithisation took place.
6000 BCE.
The analogy is putting your hand on
an electric stove, you get burned you associate the red hot
coil with burning, but you don't know neccesarily what makes
the coil hot. This is core to the proto and early civilizations
everywhere. It did not escape the dust bowl either.
Combining the two one expects advancements and declines.
We also expect resourceful humans will find other meadows and
pasture land to attempt to repeat.
Fundemental premise to the argument of neolithization of
northcentral europe is that given a portable neolithic culture
humans could port the culture into areas of unfavorable ecology
marginally favorable ecology and temperatures, and make those
ecologies favorable.
Or they could set up with the new technics in areas HGs would
not use intensely, that had a favourable microclimate supporting
imported seeds etc. Than the problems would only arise after a
couple of centuries of occupation, on secondary and tertiary
settlement sites. That's what the data from the Rhineland and
the Netherlands suggest.
Premise 2 is the less favorable the slow the transportation
works.
What do you mean by that?
It means that you need to take the process as rapid but small steps
if any several given steps results in a complete failure chain
or split end stops, or needs to reverse. This slows the migration
north.
Premise 3 as a more climatically favorable local fails to
produce, there is a marginal utility for moving to a less
favorable but (old land v. new land) initially more productive
locale. Or to put otherwise splitting such a people to a new
plot makes the old plot more favorable as it is depleted at a
slower rate, and shares the burden on the new plot.
These three premises will spell out how human settlements spell
doom for the most biomassive trees in favor of faster growing
less biomassive trees.
But this is only true for the areas utilised by humans, the
major part was not utilised, saw no woodcutting, anthropogenic
burning, cattle grazing, and still shows the same changes.
How do we know that there was not rolling occupation of some of
these areas? Look at the level of accupation found in the german
site when intense survey was undertaken, 80% of a 70km site was
used at some point, only breifly. This altered the charater of the
soil for a period of time. Granted that is not going to tear down a
forest 1000 years later, but it may cause the total biomass of a
forest 500 years later to be 1/2 or 2/3rds.
"
The average agricultural and pastoral territory demand
is 35 sq km in total, which is about half of the study area.
In the middle Linear Pottery phase former single farms
developed into hamlets (fig. 5). Therefore, despite an increase
of only two sites, to a total 35, much more land is used i
n this period. For the first time we find settlements near
to the highland, in areas up to 300 m asl, with a hinterland l
ess favourable for agriculture. 86 % of the study area is
exploited by the farmers and their animals. The
population and settlement density increased clearly
again in the later phase (fig. 6). Now, several hundred
people and their livestock inhabited 47 sites. The whole
study area is no longer sufficient to meet the required
demands.
"
This means, that there were few if any potential colonists in
early neolithic times, that would be able to spread
neolithisation to mesolithic areas. Even in the late LBK there
were not more than 'several hundred' people on 72 km² of prime
agricultural lands.
That is actually alot of people (and cattle). And BTW you don't
know that they could not spread, that is an assumption, they may
require or desire a critical size to then send out colonizers to
new sites, such blips may not be visible within the study.
The only thing that the 100s of individuals per 72 km² tells us
is that with 80% of the land in use at the maximum, they were very
inefficiently using the land. Historically we know that some of the
land in use was marginal. The 72 km² is a survey area, we do not
know how far that area extended in any direction.
Ask yourself the basic question, why such a reliance on cattle,
my opinion is by the time they get to briton, they will be much
more reliant on cattle than wheat. Initially they had higher gluten
strains, the derived quadraploids and near-bread wheat in the Near
East, by the time they get to central europe most of the growth is
in diploids and near-wild quadraploids. Gluten production is down
(protein). Therefore they are more dependent on conversion
processes. The use of soils that had an initial advantage soon
would play down, and this is when the desparation strategies would
kick in.
You cannot cut down a pine forest and then expect good cropland,
as I mentioned you need to bring in hardy grasses and graze and
reburn the grasses or chop out new growth. In some areas is might
require tending for 50 or 100 years. If I get the story correct
here, in the 1930s they chopped down interdispersed pines and build
an airstrip in a cattle ranch, the airport was removed and the land
subdivided and the pine tannins are still inhibitory to many
plants. That is over 70 years.
Looks like the LKB site became overpopulated and declined
Moved elsewhere. Starting at >50% forested and deforested to
<14% is a significant change for a 72 km parcel of land.
During a period of two thousand years, during the whole of the
LBK, population grew and settled in the same areas. There is no
indication of population pressure and, compared with later
periods, the area is still sparsely populated.
Later periods were using land more efficiently more energy per
humans per plot of land, less need for cattle.
There is little indication of people moving out of the sampling
area, the settlements grow all the time.
The sampling area is a square, a survey of another reality. The 72
km2 plot is not the neolithic reality, it is the reality of
the 2000AD sampling reality.
The sampling area is uncommonly good for agriculture, inviting
more and more people in the following periods. It was seen as so
positive, that the Romans abandoned their clearly drawn
boundaries along the Rhine and the Danube to conquer it, with
great expenses.
The romans crossed the english channel to conquer briton, but that
didn't take. The romans conquered in search of trading partners.
and to extend the protective zone around rome. In that time those
peoples were the gauls and the barbarians to the north. To rome
their ability to produce is a threat.
So in the final LBK period, the demand on the land was bigger
than the ressources. But this applies to an area after 2000
years of agriculture. It can not be applied to the problem of
early neolithisation and the change from mesolithic to neolithic
economies.
And we don't know from the paper how extensive that problem
extended. My opinion is this, they went into the area expecting
to have a modest settlement in accord with the area. Success,
unseen in this report resulted in a population surge. They were
forced to burn trees for grazing. The problem is that the cattle
moved and new cropland placed into use was more marginal that the
first cropland put into use, but the population still grew, at a
slower rate. Then they were forced to cut and burn again, this time
they are moving cows off previously cut land and onto new land, not
a problem, but they are moving crop land into cutland, and those
feilds did not produce nearly what the first cultivated feilds
produced. The growth of wheat is more productive for humans than
the feeding of cows, the extention of land for grazing, rapidly
is required when crop production falls. There in lies the problem.
Had they very good planning they would have cut and burned all the
trees in the region immediately leaving a few choice strands
untouched. Then to immediately begin turning the soil into cropland
while still grazing, to bring the deep soil up and to oxidize the
tannins in it, reterrace the soil and work compost into it.
The problem is there is no metal, they needed to draw out stumps
and burn them, many impossible neolithic tasks.
This is too much work, easier to move people to other places.
"
The settlement group "Niedermörlen" consists of one main
village with at least 15 contemporary houses and other hamlets
and single farms. During the middle phase of the Linear Pottery
a total of 25 houses belonged to the group (Schade
2003a:228ff.). If we divide 50 head of cattle amongst them,
each household will have kept 2 animals, every person 0.3
animals. The group "mittleres Merzbachtal" on the Aldenhoven
Plateau consists of the main village "Langweiler 8" and some
hamlets and single farms, altogether 16 contemporaneous houses
in generation 12 (later phase; Lüning and Stehli 1994). If the
50 animals are then divided by the 16 houses, one arrives at a
total of 3 animals per household, or 0.5 animals per head.
Conclusion: if the unit managing the herds was indeed the
settlement group, the number of animals per head or per
household would only be half that, or even less, of the
estimates made by Bakels and Gregg and other authors.
"
If the social unit managing the herd was not the settlement
group as proposed, but the village or hamlet, your proposed
minimal herd size of 40 head would result in a couple of hundred
head of cattle.
Which still means that guesses on the maximum number of cattle
could be off by
more than the numbers used here.
At the same
time there is no measure of fission within the culture or the
budding of groups who left and set up elsewhere,
The archaeological case study says the settlements grew, not
that they were abandoned for setting up outside the sampling
area. The data points at a maximum number of settlement sites
that could be used succesfully with the given technologies, and
that this number was pretty much reached at the end of the LBK.
This complies quite good with data pointing to the occupation of
sites using non-agrarian ressources starting with the middle
neolithic, after the LBK.
present during the onset. The study was not designed to measure
the rise and fall of the neolith, but to measure the fate of
people and their ecosystem in one area. We got it, humans
depleted the ecosystem.
Yes, after 2000 years of continued use, and restricted to
elevations of less than 300 m. As an argument it would work
against your supposed model of neolithisation, because there
would have been no pressure on the mesolithics or on the early
neolithics, if another 2000 years of intense farming was
possible.
After they fail then there is a reconfiguration of the habit, for
example trading with down stream fisherman brings resources into
the system. you trade out starch for proteinaceous foods. The waste
then is directed at the feilds. There is no need that the soil be
depleted in 2000 years. You are missing the point, this is seen
over and over again with human occupation.
Humans go in, the find a soil of great composition and deep
nutrient base.
The cultivate the land careless of the depletion problem
The soil is depleted
Catastrophe.
Dealers (long term farmers) with such problems, move in or provide
a new cultural equation, the soil is restored, modes of population
controll are employed (warfare, rites of passage, etc) and a longer
term equilibrium is established. There are some areas where soil
will never be exhausted as long a reasonable practices are
employed. The principle reason is rainfall, if there is adequate
rainfall all the bad humans can do can be washed out of the soil
and reparative materials can be brought in rather cheaply to
restore it. Intensive and desparate agriculture on marginal lands
eventually results in irreparable damage.
Those dealer of problem folks will tend not to use 80% of the
land when the 50% is within the marginal utility of gain, since 30%
can be used as a resource base for the 50% in use. For example wild
types of fruits and nut trees can be cultivated, wild animals can
be allowed to roam and graze, these are potential migratory routes
which can be used for seasonal hunting, etc. This staves off a
bigger problem until efficient practices and tools come into the
picture. (Plus you need a spot for frankfurt international
airport).
All of this make sense if they are buring forest
every 100 of 200 years which is damaging to species
like pines which overwhelm the canopy.
You noted, that they did not even mention pinus?
Yes. In fact I looked for their arboreal break down.
Charcoal (not anthropogenic charcoal) is mentioned as occurring
in increasing numbers only on some sites. Not a majority, and by
no means all sites. So the herders-burn-the wood-theory can be
applied only to some sites, the majority of instances of forest
change has to be explained differently.
Sites close to known occupied areas, at the onset.
practices. A natural consequence over a 50 year period is for
tall strand pinus species to undergo reforestation.
The case study talked of 2000 years of occupation before there
were consequences. How do you arrive at 50 years?
The species requires 50 or so undisturbed years to reach near
equilibrium height. If humans tampering in a negative manner
it would inhibit long term prospect of old growth grow back on
millenium time scales.
However humans tend to liberate soil nutrients to lower
elevations away from the optimal places for pine competition,
the 1st referenced study show what happens as the population
reaches 80% resource saturuation and implicit land overuse with
no rehabilitative capacities (i.e. 'the curse') followed by
depopulation. Of course for pinus tehre are still deep
nutrients, but during the next cycle the nutrients brought from
deep soil are deposited on the surface and subsequently lost to
agrarian practices, and abandoned again. At some point there is
inadequate deep soil resources and pines would be dependent on
the anthropogenic importation of nutrients (composting or
grazing) or very long term processes.
Erosion and sedimentation would provide for renewed topsoils in
every other ecosystem, have a look at a map of the Wetterau
region and compare it with the Aldenhoven highland.
Yes erosion does this, but it also puts soil humus and carbon into
a potential for oxidation. Certainly in the richest ecosystems it
is good but in systems that have been depleted is can be
catastropic. Take a look at the soil on most pristine flood plains.
Deep, loose, and dark.
No, the study showed, that the old sites were not abandoned, but
grew with time. From single farmsteads to hamlets to villages.
There were only a few sites that were founded anew.
Where did you get this from? What is your confidence in this
statement. paper 1 showed very little about flux in forested and
deforestation. What they showed was that only 20% of the land was
immediately settleable, then 80% was used and then the level of
occupation was eventually backed off, abandoning land.
We can devise a scenario that an
average herd of 1/1 humans at peak with optimal human breeding
depletes the nutrient rich grasses and clovers, first calving
slows, then milk production, with nonproductive cows the herd
is consumed and finally there are inadequate herds for
breeding. Fields are left untended, crops overgrow, trees take
over and finally pine trees restore themselves, and the
understory dies out.
So the middle neolithic settlements in the Wetterau were all
imagined, since they would contradict your theory? And what has
the over-exploitation of ressources in the late LBK has to do
with the spreading of the early LBK?
Not at all, see above, the first generation of farmers need
to focus on survival strategies on the best arable lands. This does
not restrict the use of secondary immigrants or new cultural
techniques restoring abandoned farm land. In the second round
however longer term techniques are employed.
The conclusion is that while pollen redistributed these three
oak genomic markers, maternal markers (cytoplast) showed strong
regional patterns and that the repopulation of
the regions Oak population came from Italy or the balkans about
8000 to 11,000 years ago or about the time for the first
neolithic peoples to arrive.
Watch your dates. That would be 9000 to 6000 BCE. Before the
advancement of agrarian societies into NW Europe, and after the
pinus sharp decline.
The advance was from italy to switzerland. within the range of the
first neolithic migrations. The dates are a standard deviation wide
or at 96% confidence 6500 to 13500.
The other point to be made is that humans get no immediate
relative benefit from conifer biomass above and beyond that
needed for domiciles and firewood. As a cooking wood, oak is
better.
No, pine burns quicker and not so hot. I tried it.
Your smoking beef or pork, you are using Oak, I worked in a BBQ
restaraunt for 2 years, it was Oak in at night and you had
a fire all night long. Mequite or hickory and you have
a charred piece of rock that was a briskett.
The large amount of biomass stored in conifers is not
something translatable into consumables. Oaks and deciduous
trees produce edible products for human consumption.
Only, while grain stores have been found regularly from the
early neolithic, clearly showing agriculture, stores of oak are
seldom, and later. The best guess is, that they drove pigs in
the woods for feeding on oaks.
And we see ultimately conservations stategies come to play
in agrarian and pastoral humans after a calamity has taken
place and there is a desire to repopulate those areas.
First you would have to show that areas were depopulated by
agrarian usage. Or do you mean to imply they were depopulated by
the mesolithics?
Your first paper shows depopulation due to depletion.
climate induced instabilities. This however long held
realization has not brought the giant ceder back to lebanon.
A new study on water use implies, that the amount of water has
been more or less constant, what changed was where the water is
stored (not on the mountains anymor) and what it is being used
for. So there is a lack of water inhibiting cedar growth.
Soil carbon, humus and old growth retain water in the upland water
sheds.
Burns on the order of 1 per 100 or 200 years result in the
depletion of these. Also felling and removing of trees for
downstream use. Upstream nutrients (phsopahte, iron, manganese,
magnesusm, calcium) result in upstream carbon, and old growth =
upstream water retention.
.
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