Contingency and Agency in the Mountain Landscapes of the Western Pyrenees: A Place-Based Approach to the Long Anthropocene

Ted L Gragson, Michael R. Coughlan and David S. Leigh
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Ted L Gragson: Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Michael R. Coughlan: Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
David S. Leigh: Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-22

Abstract: Regional- and biome-scale paleoecological analyses and archaeological syntheses in the mountain landscapes of the western Pyrenees suggest that the Long Anthropocene began with agropastoral land use at the onset of the Neolithic. Historical and geographic analyses emphasize the marginality of the western Pyrenees and the role of enforced social norms exacted by intense solidarities of kin and neighbors in agropastoral production. Both are satisfying and simple narratives, yet neither offers a realistic framework for understanding complex processes or the contingency and behavioral variability of human agents in transforming a landscape. The Long Anthropocene in the western Pyrenees was a spatially and temporally heterogeneous and asynchronous process, and the evidence frequently departs from conventional narratives about human landscape degradation in this agropastoral situation. A complementary place-based strategy that draws on geoarchaeological, biophysical, and socio-ecological factors is used to examine human causality and environmental resilience and demonstrate their relationship with the sustainability of mountain landscapes of the western Pyrenees over medium to long time intervals.

Keywords: Basque; Neolithic; Western Pyrenees; mountain agropastoralism; historical ecology; land-use change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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