The past plant ecosystems of Northern Apennines inferred from soil charcoal analysis

Monte Cimone and Corno alle Scale are two of the highest mountains of the Northern Apennines and they are located in the Emilia-Romagna region. They are important biodiversity sites thanks to their geographical location between the phytogeographic Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean regions. The current timberline, formed by coppice beech forest, is located at about 1700 m a.s.l. at Monte Cimone and at about 1600 m a.s.l. at Corno alle Scale, at a lower elevation than other areas of the Apennines. Soil charcoal analysis can identify the past timberline shifts in response to climate change and human impact (Bal 2006; Talon et al. 1998). Above the timberline, Vaccinium heathlands and Narduus grasslands characterize vegetation (Fig. 1). Main palaeoenvironnemental researches carried out in the Northern Apennines are palynological analyses (Vescovi et al. 2010; Watson 1996) showing that important openings of forest cover had occurred during the Late Holocene. These mountains have been exploited by sheep pastoral activity which was largely practiced until the mid-20th century when decreased drastically (Borri 2014). In our study areas the pastoral activity has only weak archaeological evidence (Cardarelli and Malnati 2006). However, we identified some pastoral structures in the current grassland landscape of Monte Cimone. The research here presented reports on pedoanthracology applied to the study of vegetation dynamics at the scale of the slope and the relationships between pastoral societies and the mountain environment. ... The soil of Monte Cimone and Corno alle Scale provide charcoals fragments dated almost exclusively to the Late Holocene. Our pedoanthracological study shows that, during this period, the plant landscape of Monte Cimone was similar to the present one while it was quite different at Corno alle Scale. Mountains were continuatively used by pastoral societies.