European land-use at 6000 BP: from on-site data to the large-scale view

Abstract

The LandCover6k working group investigates whether prehistoric and historic human impacts on land cover (i.e. anthropogenic land-cover change due to land use - LULC) were sufficiently large to have a significant impact on regional climates. This workshop focused on reconstructing land use for the European continent by synthesizing farming and landscape management patterns derived from the archaeological record, for a 6000 BP time slice. We were also interested in the location of settlements, field systems, and industrial activities. The main objectives of the workshop were to:

(i) Review LU classifications developed for other regions (Morrison et al. 2018), ensure these are usable for Europe at 6000 BP, and develop geography-specific lower-classification categories;

(ii) Establish regions with good datasets for LU and produce preliminary LU maps following the methodology of Morrison et al. (2018);

(iii) Identify high-resolution case-study areas for detailed LU mapping;

(iv) Agree on a publication strategy and subsequent analyses.