French Version
To understand actual biodiversity and better manage its future, it is necessary to know its recent evolution, regarding the evolution of human societies. The data brought together by naturalists since the 19th Century allow to judge the trends of evolution of biodiversity during a few decades. It is essential to have a more significant perspective, a few centuries or millennium, to measure the impact of our modern societies compared to pre-industrial or pre-agricultural societies.
For the last twenty millennia, archaeological, prehistoric and historic sites, and historical texts offer this opportunity. The archaeological heritage of France is both extremely rich and varied. It provides information on the history of societies, but also on their environments and the relationships they had with the latter over time (hunting, fishing, agriculture, livestock, urbanization, or even pollution). Animal (shells, bones) or plants remains (seeds, fruits, wood) accumulated by man in these sites carry information about not only the evolution of biodiversity, but also the use that man made of it for economic, social or symbolic purposes.
For France, this information has increased considerably over the last 25 years, thanks to efforts at the interface between human sciences and life sciences by several research institutions, and by the extraordinary development of rescue archaeology. A new component of archaeology dedicated to the reconstruction of ancient environments, also called archaeology of territories, was born and is one of the most active research fields of national archaeology.
Methods that contribute to describe the anthropic palaeoenvironments are numerous and cover all disciplines of natural history: geology (geomorphology, sedimentology), palaeobotany (palynology, anthracology or carpology) and archaeozoology, which analyses the relations of man and animals.
During the milemna of this long history, two major factors have marked landscapes and fauna: climate oscillations and human impacts on ecosystems.
Until the beginning of the Holocene, around 9500 BC. BC, processions of vegetation and fauna have been largely constrained by the sometimes brutal alternating ice ages and temperate episodes. Shorelines have fluctuated tens of kilometres over the glacial marine regressions and the interglacial transgressions. 12,000 years ago for example, England was still connected to Europe. The level of soil freeze of the metropolitan area also varied considerably, particularly around the mountains. Plant and animal associations have evolved accordingly, taking refuge in the more southern regions at the coldest times, then recolonising northern areas and mountain slopes in the temperate phases. These modifications affecting all of Europe, they have caused extinctions and species invasions that have shaped successive biogeographical processions.
It is within this natural context that man came, first as an experienced hunter, at the end of the Ice Age and the early Holocene, then as a farmer and rancher from 5500 BC. BC The emergence of agriculture and livestock has caused major changes in biodiversity, not only because of deforestation, but also by the introduction of new species, such as sheep and goat, wheat and barley. The impact of this anthropization has increased considerably during Gallic and Roman periods, causing extinctions, such as that of the aurochs and buffalo. During the historical period, industrialization, trade development over longer distances and especially discovery and exploration of new territories and continents (like America) helped to enrich the natural heritage of France by importation of then considered exotic taxa such as tomato or turkey.
