The future of natural resources _ La Graufesenque: the lights of history

Demain les ressources naturelles _ La Graufesenque: l’éclairage de l’histoire

Jean-Philippe Terreaux
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Jean-Philippe Terreaux: INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: Even a very gradual depletion of certain natural resources can lead to brutal ruptures in society as a whole. Thus, an apparently flourishing situation can conceal great fragility. This is the interpretation that can be given to the results of the excavations on the archaeological site of La Graufesenque (Millau, Aveyron, France). A whole town, whose activities had developed around the manufacture of ceramics sold throughout the Roman Empire during the first decades of our era, saw its activities rapidly collapse. It is shown here that the exploitation of the forest, as it was carried out at the time, can be sufficient to explain this dynamics. We combine different results from archaeology, history, economics and mathematics to explain and illustrate how this example allows us to better understand the possible evolutions of our contemporary world, which is also facing a depletion of natural resources, and how a simple slowdown in certain activities can lead to the collapse of the economic and social network.

Keywords: Roman; archeology; history; renewable; resources; energy; forest; silviculture; Hotelling; price; cost; value; models; spatial economics; Roman economics; Roman Empire; land use; technology; collapsology; dynamics; complexity; adaptation; resilience; exhaustible (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-08-24
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Published in EGD Editions. 188 p., 2022, 9798836139186

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04801273

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