Abstract
The TERRANOVA project aims to help policy makers and stakeholders cope with the transition towards low carbon societies. Improving existing knowledge of past land-use strategies will allow TERRANOVA partners to have a long-term understanding of the landscape dynamics. From the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) onwards in NW Iberia, gradual softening of climate conditions allowed hunter-gatherer societies to broaden their resource exploitation, based on the Guided Solar Energy Regime (ER1). As the environment and resources evolved with time, the subsistence strategies remained the same, only changing with the Neolithization. This transition to a novel Devised Solar Energy Regime (ER2) based on food production, would largely impact the landscapes. Human societies would soon need new resources and energies to sustain their never-ending evolution, and more importantly, to deal with the consequences of their impact on their own landscapes. An archaeological database mainly based on radiocarbon dating has been constructed and analysed at different spatial and temporal scales, in order to identify and characterize ER1 and its transition to ER2. Focusing on energy regimes allows us to see the “loop” of subsistence strategies, always creating new demands by filling the previous ones, instead of a “stack” of cultural phases. It then helps archaeologists to better understand the continuity in past societies through time. Our World is no exception to this loop. Exploiting fossil fuel has solved many issues but also created new ones. The transition to green energies and allowing the environment to recover is the next step in the loop.
Presenters
Alexandre MartinezPhD Candidate, Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Vrije Universiteit, Noord-Holland, Netherlands César Borja Barrera
Full Professor, Physical Geogrphy, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain María Esperanza Roldán Muñoz
Universidad de Sevilla José Muñoz Rojas
Senior Research Scientist, MED-Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, the Environment and Development, Universidade de Évora, Alentejo, Portugal Sjoerd J. Kluiving
Associate Professor, Humanities / Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
ENERGY-REGIMES, SUSTAINABILITY, ARCHAEOLOGY, HUNTER-GATHERERS, NEOLITHIZATION
