کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
4736554 1640844 2014 25 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Holocene semi-arid oak woodlands in the Irano-Anatolian region of Southwest Asia: natural or anthropogenic?
ترجمه فارسی عنوان
جنگل های بلوط نیمه خشک هلوسن در منطقه ایران-آناتولی جنوب غربی آسیا: طبیعی یا انسان شناسی؟
کلمات کلیدی
جنگل استو بلوط، پوشش گیاهی ایران و آناتولی، تاثیر انسانی، پیش گیاهان زراعی، انتگرال شناسی، ارتفاعات، جنوب غربی آسیا
موضوعات مرتبط
مهندسی و علوم پایه علوم زمین و سیارات زمین شناسی
چکیده انگلیسی


• We investigate the ecology of the late spread of deciduous oaks in inland SW Asia.
• The vegetation history of the region is mapped with macro-charcoal and pollen data.
• The functional ecology of the Irano-Anatolian semi-arid woodlands is discussed.
• Deciduous oaks spread as a result of the Neolithic management of savanna grasslands.
• Crop progenitor refugia in oak steppe-forests are due to human impact on grasslands.

It is commonly accepted that, following the end of the Pleistocene, semi-arid deciduous oak woodlands did not spread in the Irano-Anatolian region of Southwest Asia as quickly as they did in the Levantine Mediterranean littoral, despite the fact that climatic improvement occurred broadly at the same time in both regions. Prehistoric impacts on woodland vegetation (such as woodcutting, burning and clearance for cultivation), the harsh continental climate of inland Southwest Asia and its distance from late Pleistocene arboreal refugia have all been discussed in the literature as likely causes of the delay. In this paper we argue that semi-arid deciduous oak woodlands should not be viewed as part of the “natural” vegetation of the Irano-Anatolian region that has been progressively destroyed by millennia of human activities since the Neolithic. They represent instead one of the earliest anthropogenic vegetation types in Southwest Asia, one that owes its very existence to prehistoric landscape practices other scholars commonly label as “destructive”. Drawing on anthracological, pollen and modern vegetation data from central Anatolia we describe how the post-Pleistocene species-rich and structurally diverse temperate semi-arid savanna grasslands were gradually substituted by low-diversity, even-aged Quercus-dominated parklands and wood pastures in the course of the early Holocene. Economic strategies that encouraged the establishment and spread of deciduous oaks included sheep herding that impacted on grass and forb vegetation, the controlling of competing arboreal vegetation through woodcutting, and woodland management practices such as coppicing, pollarding and shredding that enhanced Quercus vegetative propagation, crown and stem growth. Understanding the origin and evolution of the Irano-Anatolian semi-arid oak woodlands of Southwest Asia is of critical importance for reconstructing the changing ecologies and geographical distributions of the progenitors of domesticated crop species, and the nature and scale of early agricultural impacts on the landscape.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Quaternary Science Reviews - Volume 90, 15 April 2014, Pages 158–182
نویسندگان
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