Impact of Anthropogenic Activities on Woodland in Northern Syria (4th–2nd Mill. BC): Evidence from Charcoal Assemblages and Oak Measurements

In this paper charcoals from the Syrian sites Tell Mozan and Jerablus are investigated to understand impact of 4th 2nd millennium BC settlement on vegetation. Charcoals these have been identified oak fragments measured for their maximal diameter annual ring widths. Our results show that while had reached its expansion in Mid-Holocene, vegetation Euphrates Valley was lusher than today, strong anthropogenic occurring, probably already prior Late Chalcolithic period. Due potentially enormous herds sheep goat, possibly large-scale agriculture with perhaps some understory cropping, growing very slowly, degree it must often a shrub-like appearance. People did not apply systematic woodland management practices, such as coppicing or pollarding. They used dung an additional fuel, cover shortages wood resources. The land appears both intensively extensively sustainable long term. This, combined aridity oak, led decrease proportion at Middle Bronze Age.