Archaeobotanical contribution to the history of farming practices in medieval northern Catalonia (8th-13th c.)

Jérôme Ros (1) , Olivier Passarrius (2) , Carole Puig (3) , Jérôme Kotarba (4) , Julien Mantenant (5) , Nicolas Guinaudeau (6)

1 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
2 CRESEM - Centre de Recherche sur les Sociétés et Environnements en Méditerranées
3 FRAMESPA - France, Amériques, Espagne,Sociétés, Pouvoirs, Acteurs
4 Inrap - Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives
5 TRACES - Travaux et recherches archéologiques sur les cultures, les espaces et les sociétés
6 Ausonius-Institut de recherche sur l'Antiquité et le Moyen âge

The High Middle Ages is considered as a period of major changes for the agricultural world. These changes, which intervene as soon as the 9th c. in Catalonia and reached their full potential between the 12th and the 13th c., had an impact on farming practices and on the exploited landscapes: forest clearing, creation of new rural spaces, improvement of water management (irrigation, mills), exploitation of wetlands (marsh) for the creation of meadows, then for cereal cultivation, increase of specialized productions. Although well known through the study of textual sources, agrarian productions and practices were, so far, poorly documented by archaeology in northern Catalonia (Pyrénées-Orientales, France). The increase of archaeobotanical investigations in this region allow us to present a first review of medieval farming practices. Based on the study of fifteen rural sites, this paper aims to document, through archaeobotanical data, the characteristics of northern Catalan agriculture between the 8th and the 13th c. (cultivated crops, prevalence of certain species, farming practices associated, types of exploited landscapes), while attempting to detect possible specificities or evolutions over the long term (integration of new species to the staple crops, agrarian specialization).

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Archéologie et Préhistoire; Sciences et techniques de l'agriculture

Jérôme Ros, Olivier Passarrius, Carole Puig, Jérôme Kotarba, Julien Mantenant, et al.. Archaeobotanical contribution to the history of farming practices in medieval northern Catalonia (8th-13th c.). Archaeology of peasantry, From the Late Prehistory to the European Common Agriculture Policy, XI Conference on Medieval Archaeology in Northen Iberia, Oct 2018, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. ⟨halshs-02582168⟩