Sophisticated land management in the Middle-Recent Bronze Age: palynologycal evidence from the Terramara Santa Rosa di Poviglio (northern Italy)

The integrated palynological and geoarchaeological study provides increasingly detailed knowledge of the subsistence and productive economy of prehistoric cultures. The Terramara Santa Rosa di Poviglio Bronze Age site (Northern Italy) was characterised by a complex system of sylvo-agricultural economy and a multifunctional land use as happened in most of prehistoric sites. The site consists of two dwelling areas - ‘Villaggio Piccolo’ (VP) and ‘Villaggio Grande’ (VG) - dating back to the Middle Bronze Age and to the Recent Bronze Age, respectively. During the exploration of the hydraulic facilities of the site, a stratigraphic sequence 4 m deep was identified in the moat dividing the VP and VG part of the settlements. The high-resolution VP/VG stratigraphic record provided a ten-year resolved pollen stratigraphy that preserves evidence of environmental changes happened in the Po Plain during the Late Holocene. Pedosedimentary features and biological records (aquatics pollen and algal remains) show that shallow water was permanent at the bottom of the moat at the beginning of the formation of the sequence, while the water level dropped significantly during the last phase of existence of the settlement. Along the trajectory of the settlement, pollen curves show significant trends and short oscillations representing coppicing and crop rotation practices. In the last phases of site occupation, an increased climatic aridity and intensive land use may have had a combined negative effect at the expense of plant cover. Cereal cultivation continued during the late Recent Bronze, but the main traits of the landscape became pasturelands. The study of the final part of the infilling of the moat indicates that the regeneration of the forest did not occur immediately after the abandonment of the village (dated at ca. 3200 years BP), but in the early Middle Ages, when the area turned into a swamp.