Sustainability in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age through the lens of archaeobotany

Sustainability has played an important role in human cultures since prehistoric times. People shaped the environment to assure stability to settlements and crop fields, and to allow survival and wellness to generations. Changes of land use and plant selection were evident at any climate change across the Lateglacial and Holocene periods. The Mediterranean Basin as the cradle of western civilization has been a witness of adaptive strategies of prehistoric people living in many territories in past millennia. Most economies of prehistoric people are revealed by palynology and archaeobotany which give plant evidence of past environmental conditions. During Neolithic and the Bronze Age, the relationships of humans with Nature have probably started to change. The Bronze Age is emblematic as important technical and cultural skills were achieved that triggered the evolution of complex agro-sylvopastoral systems, as in the case of the land management adopted by the Terramare culture in the Po Plain. The shaping of the environment has resulted in different cultural landscapes that still today tell tales of struggle for survival and challenges fought in search of a sustainable development.