Management of Architectural Woods and Variations in Population Density in the Fourth and Third Millennia B.C. (Lakes Chalain and Clairvaux, Jura, France)1

Because the stability of the anaerobic conditions in littoral environments has been favorable to the conservation of wood, vegetal fibers, seeds, and pollen, these locations today provide us with almost unequalled data for the study of the history of relations between agricultural communities and their transformations of the environment through the repercussions of repeated forest clearing. Starting from a specific case study (the littoral Neolithic villages of lakes Chalain and Clairvaux in the Jura), we will try to determine and follow the evolution of materials used for domestic architecture, which was entirely constructed of wood; the question is to determine what is truly intentional human choice and management of the forest and what is due to natural constraints imposed by progressive modification of the forest under the impact of extensive clearance, the temporary bringing of areas under cultivation, and the increase in the abundance of livestock. Finally, beyond this case study, we must ask ourselves what are the more general constraints which can explain the nonlinear evolution of the forest environment, driven by the relative expansion or diminution of the areas covered by cereal agriculture. © 1996 Academic Press, Inc.