Anna Maria Mercuri

Over the last millennia, the land between the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, characterized by
extraordinary habitat diversity, has seen an outstanding cross-cultural development. For the first time,
this paper reports on the census of the Holocene archaeological sites that have been studied as part of
archaeobotany in Italy (continental Italy, the Italian peninsula and islands) over the last quarter in a
century. Pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, seeds and fruits, woods/charcoals and other plant remains
have all been analysed in multidisciplinary researches. A list of 630 sites has been provided by more
than 15 archaeobotanical teams. The sites are located across the 20 regions of Italy, and in the
Republic of San Marino (356 sites in northern Italy, 118 in central Italy, 156 in southern Italy and on
the islands). They belong to several cultural phases: 321 sites are only pre-Roman, 264 are
Roman/post-Roman, and 45 sites cover a broader range of time, present in both time spans. Site
distribution is plotted in maps of site density according to geographical districts and the main
chronological phases. The reference list helps to find analytical data referring to the descriptive
papers that may be scattered throughout monographies and specific books on the matter.

A new interpretation of the crisis of the terramare as being caused by wood loss and water shortages is suggested from on-site pollen analyses. A multi-point sampling strategy in one site, and a multi-site sampling strategy in one area allowed us to obtain a reliable plant landscape reconstruction even though cultural variables strongly influenced the pollen spectra.
Pollen data from two archaeological sites, the Terramara di Baggiovara and the Necropoli di Casinalbo, which are about 1.6 km from each other, close to the Terramara di Montale, offer the chance to understand in depth the land-use at the time of the terramare culture, during the Middle–Recent Bronze Age in Northern Italy. Overall, the sites were inhabited from c. 1650 to c. 1150 BC. They show affinities and dissimilarities as regards natural and cultural backgrounds across the large territory occupied by the terramare.
Baggiovara and Casinalbo pollen diagrams show exceptionally similar mean data, demonstrating how the on- sites with classically human-influenced stratigraphies may be useful for palaeoenvironmental studies. According to pollen data, settlements were built in areas characterised by scarce human presence, and woodland became thinner, or virtually disappeared, following the establishment of the villages. Woody plants provided timber, and then might have been protected to collect fruits. Much of the open landscape around the villages was used as pasturelands, and part was cultivated to grow cereals.
One of the most striking pieces of data arising from this study is the role that woods must have had in the Middle Bronze Age in this area. On the Po plain, forest cover was thin even before the beginning of the terramare, and this attracted people to settle there. However, trees and shrubs also satisfied basic needs, being indispensable for building houses, collecting fruits and providing wood for the fire. The wood loss may have been a factor of crisis that determined the decline of some villages before or during the water deficit that caused the disappearance of this culture.

The paper reports on the urban archaeobotany of Modena, a town that lies on the southern Po Plain of the Emilia Romagna region, Northern Italy. Founded in 183 BC, it was an important Roman colony known as Mutina. The integrated study of micro- and macro-remains, the interdisciplinary archaeological and botanical approach, and the comparison of on-site/off-site records allow the reconstruction of an urban environment of the past. Pollen and macroremains from four archaeological sites located in and around the ancient walls, along with pollen from an off-site trench, were studied with an integrated approach, aimed at reconstructing the main floristic, vegetational and palaeoecological features of the town and its surroundings between the 6th century BC and the 10th century AD. During the Roman age, the natural plant landscape was characterised by wetlands, thinly scattered mixed oak woods, cereal fields, gardens and other human environments; during the Late Roman and Early Medieval age, the woodlands increased. Some currently rare, or locally extinct, species lived in the area. The fragmentation of the landscape has been evident since the Roman times because pieces of the natural environments have survived near lands strongly modified by inhabitants.

Cultural landscapes are priority research themes addressed in many fields of knowledge. Botanists can explore the ecological, formal and cognitive level of cultural landscapes with different approaches. Palynologists study both palaeoenviron- mental (off-site) and archaeological (on-site) records and are, therefore, in a privileged corner to observe the origin and history of present landscapes, what is their true nature and vocation, what must be preserved or transformed for the future. The study of an archaeo- logical site shows short space–time events and the behaviour of a few people. In order, though, to attain a regional and cross-area cultural landscape reconstruc- tion, many sites must be studied as part of a regional multi-point site and with an interdisciplinary approach. The likelihood to observe human-induced environ- ments in pollen diagrams depends on the nature and productivity of human-related plant species. In the Mediterranean area, many Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic sites point to the long-term action on the environment. However, the pollen signal of pre- Holocene and early Holocene human impact is ambiguous or weak. The effects of culture became evident, and possibly irreversible, as a consequence of human permanence in a certain land. In the Bronze age,
A. M. Mercuri (&) Department of Life Sciences, Laboratory of Palynology and Palaeobotany, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Viale Caduti in Guerra 127, 41121 Modena, Italy e-mail: annamaria.mercuri@unimore.it
the establishment of human-induced environments was evident from the combination of decrease of forest cover and increase of cereal and synanthropic pollen types in pollen records.
Keywords Pollen 􏰆 Archaeobotany 􏰆 Palaeoecology 􏰆 Long-term human impact

Rock shelters in the central Saharan massifs preserve anthropogenic stratigraphic sequences that
represent both a precious archive for the prehistory of the region and a powerful proxy data for Holocene
palaeoenvironments. The geoarchaeological (micromorphology) and archaeobotanical (pollen analysis)
approaches were integrated to investigate the anthropogenic sedimentary sequence preserved within
the Takarkori rock shelter, a Holocene archaeological site located in the Libyan central Sahara (southern
Tadrart Acacus massif). The site was occupied throughout the Early and Middle Holocene (African Humid
Period) by groups of hunteregatherers before and by pastoral communities later. The investigation on
the inner part of the sequence allows to recognize the anthropogenic contribution to sedimentation
process, and to reconstruct the major changes in the Holocene climate. At the bottom of the stratigraphic
sequence, evidence for the earliest frequentation of the site by hunters and gatherers has been recognized;
it is dated to c. 10,170 cal yr BP and is characterized by high availability of water, freshwater
habitats and sparsely wooded savannah vegetation. A second Early Holocene occupation ended at c.
8180 cal yr BP; this phase is marked by increased aridity: sediments progressively richer in organics,
testifying to a more intense occupation of the site, and pollen spectra indicating a decrease of grassland
and the spreading of cattails, which followed a general lowering of lake level or widening of shallowwater
marginal habitats near the site. After this period, a new occupational phase is dated between c.
8180 and 5610 cal yr BP; this period saw the beginning of the frequentation of pastoral groups and is
marked by an important change in the forming processes of the sequence. Sediments and pollen spectra
confirm a new increase in water availability, which led to a change in the landscape surrounding the
Takarkori rock shelter with the spreading of water bodies. The upper part of the sequence, dating
between c. 5700 and 4650 cal yr BP records a significant environmental instability towards dryer climatic
conditions, consistent with the end of the African Humid Period. Though some freshwater habitats were
still present, increasing aridity pushed the expansion of the dry savannah. The final transition to arid
conditions is indicated by the preservation of ovicaprines dung layers at the top of the sequence together
with sandstone blocks collapsed from the shelter's vault. On the contrary, the outer part of the sequence
preserves a significantly different palaeoenvironmental signal; in fact, the surface was exposed to rainfall
and a complex pedogenetic evolution of the sequence occurred, encompassing the formation of an
argillic laminar horizon at the topsoil, the evolution of a desert pavement, and the deposition of Mn-rich
rock varnish on stones. These processes are an effect of the general environmental instability that
occurred in the central Sahara since the Middle Holocene transition. Finally, the local palaeoclimatic
significance of the sequence fits well with Holocene regional and continental environmental changes recorded by many palaeohydrological records from North Africa. This highlights the potential of geoarchaeological
and archaeobotanical investigations in interpreting the palaeoenvironmental significance
of anthropogenic cave sediments in arid lands.

A palynological study was carried out on 28 corpses brought in one year (June 2003–May 2004) to the morgue of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Parma (Northern Italy).
CONCLUSIONS
The number of corpses studied so far is high enough to yield
firm conclusions about the link between pollen on corpses and
the season of death. But some important indications can be
inferred from the data obtained in this year-long investigation
and these complement our previous studies [18].
Corpses trap pollen from the ground and from objects and
plants with which people have had contact before their death
[1,6]. Our data strongly suggested that, if the more exposed
parts of the face are analysed, most pollen grains are captured
still fresh and that they can quite frequently be trapped from the
air or from recent deposits. In ascertaining season of death, the
exposed parts of the face seem to be the most useful for
obtaining pollen from plants which are in flower. Nevertheless,
the corpse/air discrepancies which were found suggested that
the principle cannot be generalised.
Quantitative data alone are not a helpful parameter to deduce
the season/month of death. In fact, the environment and
condition of death can notably influence the amount of pollen
on corpses, and the observed discrepancies between pollen
abundance on corpses and in the atmosphere are due to the local
plant cover. Again, many more cases need to be analysed,
carefully with precise information about people and deaths,
before the actual level of the parameter ‘‘amount of pollen’’ can
be estimated. It emerged that the list of pollen types on each
corpse is clearly linked to the season of death, especially when
the pollen spectrum is considered overall. However, the types
which are prevalent in a given case depend more on the death
pollen scene than on the general pollen rain of the area.
In this research, the comparison between the pollen recorded
on corpses and seasonal pollen rain present in the region was
made on the basis of known variables: the date of death, the
region and locality of death. Pollen rain composition can be
ascertained from pollen calendars from the aerobiological
network, if present, and it was found that pollen on corpses
largely corresponded to the pollen rain for the region [15, and
subsequent]. This shows that there is a close connection
between forensic palynology and aerobiology, and the airborne
pollen calendars can be a significant reference tool for
establishing the season or month when an unknown death
happened.
Our data shows that the three ‘‘seasonal pollen groups’’ of
corpses match the three main aerobiological seasons, based on
the regional monitoring stations, indicating that a preliminary
‘‘crime pollen calendar’’ was obtained from corpses.

Within the framework of the EU Project Culture 2000 ‘Cultural landscapes of the past: recovering crop fields and gardens in archaeological parks of Europe’ (coord. Jordi Tresserras Juan), the ar- chaeobotanical study of the Terramara di Montale was carried out in a specific attempt to reconstruct cereal fields.
The archaeological site of the Terramara di Montale is a key place for understanding the civili- zation which developed in the Po Plain during the Middle and Recent Bronze Age (1650 - 1170 B.C.; Bernabò Brea et al. 1997). As a general rule, terra-
maras consisted of a fortified village, with rows of houses, surrounded by an embankment and a ditch. Each site had an area of influence, i.e. a territory devoted to the exploitation of subsistence resour- ces, which was more or less extended depending on the size of the settlement, its distance from other existing sites and the chronological phase (Cardarelli 1988).

Pollen data suggested that cereal fields covered approximately 75 ha near-site. Barley, einkorn and millet fields may have been prevalently distributed in the western/south-western near-site areas. About one third of the open areas in the Terramara’s area of influence were devoted to fields and the other part to shrubby pastures. The alternation of field and pastu- res were found to have been a major typology of land use. Besides crop-pasture alternation, ignicoltura (using fire to clear) was adopted at the establishment of the settlement, and fire was probably also used in subsequent times to manage the land. Crop rotation and animal dung were also used to enrich soils, thus assuring good yields. These practices provided a suf- ficient renewal of the territory for some years, but probably not for the entire life of the Terramara. In fact, cereal fields followed the history of the site: before the onset of the settlement, they were already present in the territory; then they rapidly expanded when people settled on the site; fields became a main feature of the cultural landscape; when the Terramara declined, either the extension of fields decreased or they were, more probably, abandoned. The near-site pollen diagram showed that the declining trend of cereal fields observed in the on-site diagram conti- nued till early Roman times (figs. 3,5), but the area’s vocation for cereal fields did not stop until some time after the Mediaeval Age.

Woody plant performance in a changing global environment has always been at the centre of palaeoenvironmental and long-term climate reconstructions carried out by means of pollen analysis. In Mediterranean regions, Taxus constitutes the highest percentage in past pollen diagrams from cold or cool periods, and therefore it is generally considered a good index to infer climate features from past records. How- ever, a comparison of these inferences with the true current trends in pollen pro- duction has not been attemped until now. This study reports the decline of airborne pollen of Taxus observed in Emilia Romagna, a region of northern Italy, during the period 1990–2007. Phenological observations on four male specimens and microscopic examination of fresh pollen were made in order to check Taxus flowering time and pollen morphology. Airborne pollen was monitored through continuous sampling with a Hirst volumetric sampler. In the 18-year long period of investigation, Taxus pollen production has decreased, while total woody pollen abundance in air has increased. The trend of the Taxus pollen season shows a delay at the beginning, a shortening of the pollen period, and an advance of the end of the pollen season. This was interpreted as a response to climate warming. In partic- ular, Taxus follows the behaviour of winter-flowering plants, and therefore earlier pollination is favoured at low autumn temperatures, while late pollination occurs more often, most likely after warm autumn temperatures.

"The paper presents the large set of basketry and other worked fibre artefacts constituting the perishable artefacts assemblage from the Takarkori rock shelter. This site is located in southwestern Libya, central Sahara. Its well-preserved Holocene stratigraphy testifies to human occupations by foraging groups (Late Acacus culture; ca. 9000e7400 uncal years bp; ca. 8300e6100 BCE) and herders (Pastoral cultures; ca. 7400e4500 uncal years bp; ca. 6400e3000 BCE).
The basketry collection includes 91 desiccated items. They have been divided into two distinct groups: basketry constructions and basketry elements (b-items: 53 fragments); ropes and other elements in the broad sense (r-items: 38 fragments). Stems were mostly used to make the b-items, while a fairly diversified set of materials was used for ropes and other elements. In a few cases, mixed animal and plant materials were also employed. SEM analyses showed some diagnostic characteristics such as epidermal stomata, phytoliths, hairs and vessels indicating monocotyledons. Many items were identified as Panicoideae, likely of the Setaria and Panicum types. Therefore, the main wild cereals collected for food and transported into the site also seem to have been the main plants used to make basketry. The only wooden item was attributed to Vitex. The majority of the basketry is made using the twined technique.
Basketry remains were more common during the Late Acacus occupation of the site, possibly asso- ciated with wild cereal processing and storage, reinforcing the idea of a re-organization of food security towards a delayed use of resources. The basketry material could be interpreted as remains of large and open baskets to collect and store seeds. Decreasing availability of wild cereals, changes in resource exploitation and the nomadic mobility pattern may explain why a smaller number of basketry items was found in layers connected to the Pastoral phases of occupation."

The palaeoclimatic evolution of northwestern Libya has been deduced from the study of the palustrine and aeolian sediments. The Holocene environmental variations have been recognized through geological and stratigraphic surveys and by pollen analysis and malacofauna content of the sediments. Some organic-rich horizons have been dated using the radiocarbon method. The data show that in general, the presence of marshes is linked with the period of higher humidity, which began around 9.4 ka BP and ended around 5.0 ka BP. From c. 5.0 ka BP up to about 4.4 ka BP, there was a simultaneous presence of marshes and vegetation of arid climate as a consequence of rainfall in the mountains and/or a decrease in temperatures. The Holocene wet period was interrupted by two arid spells dated about 8.2 and 5.5–5.4 ka BP. The end of the wet phase must have been gradual. The climatic events that occurred in the Jefara plain seem to be well correlated with those identified in Saharan Africa even if the Mediterranean is only 100 km away.

... hIEDIEVALE (1273-1325 DC) DA UN FOS-SAT0 IN ARGENTA (4111 SLM, FERRARA - NORDITALIA) ... Durante scavi a scopo edilizio, ad Argenta (FE), sono stati messi in luce, a ... di campagna, due fossati di ampieua diversa che fiirono bonificati in eti medievale (1275-1325 dC ...

Central Sahara rock shelters offer an early and middle Holocene environmental reconstruction. This paper summarises palynological research carried out within a multidisciplinary archaeological research project on the Wadi Teshuinat area (Tadrart Acacus Mts., in south-western Fezzan, Libya). The sites were occupied by hunter-gatherer and pastoralist cultures. On-site pollen data, treated as a single ‘regional site’, showed that different pollen stratigraphies and flora characterised the past phases. Plant macro-remains also helped to understand local plant exploitation and landscape evolution. Pollen spectra showed the following climate oscillations: wet and cool (approx. 8800–8250 cal. BC), dry and warm (approx. 7920–7520 cal. BC), wet (approx. 7550–7200 cal. BC), dry (approx. 6340–6210 cal. BC—geoarchaeological evidence), wet and warm (approx. 6250–4300 cal. BC, including a wetter and warmer phase at approx. 5500–4600 cal. BC); dry and warm (approx. 4250–2900 cal. BC); drier and warm (approx. 2900–1600 cal. BC, up to the present). Since the early Holocene, both climatic and anthropic factors have played an important and strictly interconnected role in transforming the environment. Thus, while subsistence strategies were adjusting to climatic and environmental changes, the plant landscape was also being slowly and continuously shaped by humans.

A multi-proxy study of a Holocene sediment core (RF 93-30) from the western flank of the central Adriatic, in 77 m of water, reveals a sequence of changes in terrestrial vegetation, terrigenous sediment input and benthic fauna, as well as evidence for variations in sea surface temperature spanning most of the last 7000 yr. The chronology of sedimentation is based on several lines of evidence, including AMS 14C dates of foraminifera extracted from the core, palaeomagnetic secular variation, pollen indicators and dated tephra. The temporal resolution increases towards the surface and, for some of the properties measured, is sub-decadal for the last few centuries.The main changes recorded in vegetation, sedimentation and benthic foraminiferal assemblages appear to be directly related to human activity in the sediment source area, which includes the Po valley and the eastern flanks of the central and northern Appenines. The most striking episodes of deforestation and expanding human impact begin around 3600 BP (Late Bronze Age) and 700 BP (Medieval) and each leads to an acceleration in mass sedimentation and an increase in the proportion of terrigenous material, reflecting the response of surface processes to widespread forest clearance and cultivation. Although human impact appears to be the proximal cause of these changes, climatic effects may also have been important. During these periods, signs of stress are detectable in the benthic foram morphotype assemblages. Between these two periods of increased terrigeneous sedimentation there is smaller peak in sedimentation rate around 2400BP which is not associated with evidence for deforestation, shifts in the balance between terrigenous and authigenic sedimentation, or changes in benthic foraminifera.The mineral magnetic record provides a sensitive indicator of changing sediment sources: during forested periods of reduced terrigenous input it is dominated by authigenic bacterial magnetite, whereas during periods of increased erosion, anti-ferromagetic minerals (haematite and/or goethite) become more important, as well as both paramagnetic minerals and super-paramagnetic magnetite. Analysis of the alkenone, U37k′, record provides an indication of possible changes in sea surface temperature during the period, but it is premature to place too much reliance on these inferred changes until the indirect effects of past changes in the depth of the halocline and in circulation have been more fully evaluated.The combination of methods used and the results obtained illustrate the potential value of such high resolution near-shore marine sedimentary sequences for recording wide-scale human impact, documenting the effects of this on marine sedimentation and fauna and, potentially, disentangling evidence for human activities from that for past changes in climate.

"Aerobiologia 2.0" is a simple computer program created to handle the pollen data collected every 2 hrs and daily by aerobiological monitoring stations equipped with Hirst-type spore traps. "Aerobiologia 2.0" runs on Windows 3.1 and is compatible with other programs that run on this operating system. The program was developed to store and process pollen data through a few straightforward operations. An unlimited calendar automatically calculates the day of the week. The pollen dictionary, which can hold up to 1216 different pollen types, may be modified or changed completely. Concentrations for every pollen type (in pollen grains/m3) are automatically recorded daily and every 2 hrs. 10-day and monthly sums are also calculated. The percentage of selected types, groups, or families of pollen collected each day, every 10 days, and monthly is quickly available. Pollen calendars and spectra in 24-hr, 10-day, monthly, tri-monthly, half-year, and yearly periods are readily produced. As soon as it is entered, the pollen data are saved on hard disk. A year's worth of data can be saved on a single 1.44 M byte floppy disk. Aerobiologia 2.0 is being used successfully to process the aeropollen data collected at the two monitoring stations managed by our Palynological Laboratory.

On the Adriatic shelf, the late-glacial and Holocene record is very thick and therefore a high stratigraphic resolution can be expected. Typically, three units deposited during the 120-m global sea level rise that followed the last glacial maximum, culminating about 5, 500 cal. years BP. While ...