Sorting the Trees: The Role of Laurus nobilis in the Woodland Management Practices at La Draga (Banyoles, Spain)

What is it about?

Woodland management is suggestes at least from the Neolithic onwards, but never proved. The goal of this paper is to discuss woodland management practices in La Draga site 7000 years ago. So far different methods and techniques have been applied to approach this issue and some preliminary results obtained. But in recent excavations it appeared new wooden archaeological materials which help approach this issue from another point of view: the presence of scars on the wood surface. For the first time, at la Draga, it has been possible to identify scars on the wood surface of piles which indicates that the trees were marked before being cut down. The piles marked have been identified as laurel a tree rarely exploited during the Neolithic in Europe, which poses the question of the intentional selection of this wood at La Draga. This paper will present the results of the study of the laurel piles in the context of the wooden remains of La Draga site. The results of the different approaches are summarized and contrasted to provide new lights on Neolithic woodland management in Europe.

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