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Attitudes to altitude: changing meanings and perceptions within a 'marginal'

Alpine landscape - the integration of palaeoecological and archaeological data
in a high-altitude landscape in the French Alps
Kevin Walsh a; Suzi Richer a; J. L. de Beaulieu
a
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 perceptions

within a 'marginal' Alpine landscape - the integration of palaeoecological and archaeological data in a high-altitude landscape in the
French Alps',World Archaeology,38:3,436 454
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00438240600813392
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240600813392

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Attitudes to altitude: changing

meanings and perceptions within a
marginal Alpine landscape the
integration of palaeoecological and
archaeological data in a high-altitude
landscape in the French Alps
Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer, with a contribution
from J.-L. de Beaulieu

Abstract
Research into Alpine archaeology in France has concentrated on the lower altitudes and has
emphasized economic and chrono-typological approaches. Notions of Alpine landscapes as
marginal, dened via discourses imbued with environmental determinism, have informed this type
of archaeology. A multidisciplinary project has studied the history of the presence and absence of
people in two adjacent study areas in the Ecrins National Park. Some 240 new sites have been
discovered, 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 to
reconstruct past economic activities, but also to assess how pre- and proto-historic peoples may have
engaged 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 rst risked themselves
World Archaeology Vol. 38(3): 436454 Archaeology at Altitude
2006 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online
DOI: 10.1080/00438240600813392

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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. Dierent groups within dierent societies engage with
and perceive landscapes in many dierent ways. Early modern representations of marginal
landscapes still inuence 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 inuenced
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.
Haghes engravings, based on nineteenth-century drawings made by Lord Monson, of the
French Alps (in particular, the areas visited by the Protestant missionary Felix Ne).
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 lled 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 nonhuman 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 dierent pre- and
proto-historic cultural groups into the French Alps, were largely based on the distribution
of objects that were assigned to specic 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 dene 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

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Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer

Figure 1 Location of the study area.

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.

Denition of research problem and review of the study area

Our aim in the past eight years of eldwork 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 specic chronological periods in the past
(Bailly-Ma tre and Bruno Dupraz 1994; Bailly-Ma tre 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).

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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 Freissinie`res 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 dierent phases of
activity on the same site.

The synthesis of the archaeology

The eldwork investigations in the Ecrins comprise prospection and excavation data. In
the Ecrins, stone tools represent pre- and early Holocene peoples across four dierent
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 Freissinie`res study zone.

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Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer

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
Allerd 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 int in an open-air location at 2200m on the Faravel plateau
(Mocci et al. 2006). The assemblage includes microakes 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 concavetruncated 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 int 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 ve int scatters
dated to the middle Neolithic (based on tool typologies). Faravel XXII yielded twentythree pieces of int, including one medial fragment of a retouched blade, as well as other
blade fragments. Faravel XVII produced int and one piece of Neolithic pottery. Some
stratied int was also found on one of the excavated sites. These sites are all situated
on top of drumlins, or, in one instance, on a cli 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 conrmed Neolithic sites comprising small
quantities of worked int. Despite the fact that this period witnesses the rst 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 Freissinie`res, 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

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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 25802400 cal. BC (Poz-5500). Three metres to the south
west of this structure, Chichin IIIa (24602200 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 lHomme II is quite

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

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dierent. 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 25802340 cal. BC (Poz-13919) and carbon-14 (classical method)
to 2470 BC2280 cal. BC (Pa-2363). At Faravel, in the Freissinie`res commune, a similar site
(Faravel XIX at 2310m) has been dated to 21501920 cal. BC (Pa-2209). The only
dierence 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 (21501920 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 int. 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 15401410 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 reects a later phase of activity,
although the stratigraphic information tends to support the rst 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 nal 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, Freissinie`res.

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

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The Iron Age and Roman period

In the Freissinie`res 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 770400 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 110130 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
(specically, 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 Freissinie`res 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-fth 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 rst 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, 17401520 cal.
BC (Fig. 5). During the Neolithic, the pollen evidence suggests a forested landscape

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

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445

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 8090 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 ocks intermittently or for protecting ill or injured animals
that made up part of a larger ock (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 eect 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 ower and

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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
inuence 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 dAnnecy, 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 eect of placing people against an environmental
backdrop where, at best, the environment is read as an element that responds to and/or
inuences, 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 nal 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 dening
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

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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: 2445) 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 dierent 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 dierent 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 dierent way. If we accept Lewis-Williams
and Pearces (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

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Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer

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

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, owering, 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 dierent horizontal (altitudinal) zones.
They are thus related to the cycle of human movement between the dierent altitudes,
whether these movements are related to the pursuit of game during the Mesolithic and
Neolithic, or to the movement to dierent pastures as part of the transhumant cycle which
started during the late third and second millennia BC.

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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
dierent 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: 8898). 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 aected 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: 246). 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 re purely for its heat, especially if pine was more freely

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450

Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer

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 eect 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 o 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 eect 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 magicreligious signicance 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 protably 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 dierences between culture and nature are less important, or are quite
dierent to those that existed in centred cosmologies. This world would have been
ordered horizontally, and movement between the dierent zones of the landscape (from
village to distant parts of the landscape) was invited (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005:
3589). In either case, mountain environments, whether uncivilized or not, were an
important element within the Bronze Age landscape and cosmos. The dierence 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

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451

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pastoral activity. However, as noted above, this may be due to the ability of these plants to
ourish while little grazing is actually taking place.
Many urban Romans had a very dierent 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 humanitys 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 dierent 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 inuencing 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 highAlpine zone. One of the dening 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 int material was undertaken by S. Tzortzis (Ville de Martigues) and C. Bressy
(Universite Joseph Fourrier, Grenoble), J.-P. Bracco and A. DAnna (Economies,
Societes, Environnements Prehistoriques, UMR 6636, Aix-en-Provence), and that of the
ceramic material by L. Vallauri (Laboratoire dArcheologie Mediterraneenne Medievale,
UMR 6572, Aix-en-Provence). Charcoal analysis was undertaken by A. Durand
(Laboratoire dArcheologie Mediterraneenne Medievale, UMR 6572, Aix-en-Provence)

452

Kevin Walsh and Suzi Richer

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

dAix-Marseille I) and palynological work by J.-L. de Beaulieu (Institut Mediterraneen
dEcologie et de Paleoecologie). The Parc Nationale des Ecrins and the Service Regionale
pour lArcheologie (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 dEcologie 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
dEcologie et de Paleoecologie. Her research is concerned with palynological and
archaeological work in the French Alps.