6533b7d7fe1ef96bd126854e

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Cinq millénaires de métallurgie en montagne basque. Les apports d'une démarche intégrée alliant palynologie et géochimie isotopique du plomb

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description

Five thousand years of metallurgy in the basque mountains : the contributions of an integrated process mixing palynology and the isotopic chemistry of lead. An interdisciplinary research combining palyno- logy and lead isotopic geochemistry was performed in a peat bog of the Basque Country, in an area recognized as being an old metallurgical centre. These various analyses make it possible to reconstitute mining and metallurgical activities and to appreciate the impact on forest during last five millennia. Several phases are attested between late Neolithic and modern times (Middle Bronze age, Late Bronze age, Antiquity and finally modern time). Most of these phases are clearly related to forest clearance, however it arises that locally the impact of the metallurgy on wood peaks at the beginning of centuries 15th-16th.