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Newly acquired palaeobotanical data, including pollen, charred and uncharred wood, provided an exhaustive overview of the temporal changes in woodlands, which changes are due to the cumulative effect of natural processes and the long-term impact of pre-agrarian societies. We used the unique advantage of the peat bog archaeological site at Szczepanki located on an island in the former Lake Staświn (Masurian Lake District) to get an overview of wood exploitation throughout the Stone Age. Special attention was paid to the period of the most intense settlement, the period of the para-Neolithic Zedmar culture. This culture is interesting due to its economy having not been fully recognized so far, especially with respect to the use of plant resources. The evidence from Szczepanki confirmed the use of 16 arboreal taxa, accessible in local woodlands, as a source of timber by foragers. The majority of both unworked wood and fragments bearing traces of processing has been discovered in layers corresponding to the Zedmar period. An important role in the economy was played by wood with medium or low mechanical properties that was however fissile and amenable to woodworking. In addition, other useful properties such as flexibility, lightness, water resistance, strength and ease of splitting were favoured in the selection. The temporal distribution of wood remains in cultural layers at Szczepanki was convergent with a pollen record documenting the course of postglacial migration and local growth of particular taxa, as well as with the archaeologically documented changes in the intensity and time frame of the settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses various aspects of the use of wood for crafts in the Middle Ages, based on xylological analyses of 4211 crafted items of everyday use discovered at 62 archaeological sites in Poland. Over 1500 items were identified in the authors' own analyses, and the remaining taxonomic data were taken from the literature. The research showed that the main types of wood used at the time were Pinus sylvestris, Quercus sp., Fraxinus excelsior, Picea sp. vel Larix sp., Taxus baccata, Alnus sp., Abies alba and Euonymus sp. Nineteen other taxa were used to make a much smaller pool of objects. At most of the analysed sites a similar set of materials was used to produce the items, regardless of their age and location. The choice of wood was selective and was based on the characteristics of particular tree and shrub species. Large coopered vessels were primarily made of wood from Quercus sp., Pinus sylvestris and Taxus baccata. The manufacture of turned utensils usually involved Fraxinus excelsior, while stave bowls were made using only Pinus sylvestris and Picea/Larix (mainly Picea abies). To verify the local availability of the source taxa, we used pollen sequences from natural and anthropogenic sites in the vicinity of the places where the examined artefacts were found. The choice of wood was limited by the availability of the trees and shrubs. In north-western Poland the most important taxa used for woodworking in the Middle Ages were Pinus sylvestris, Quercus sp., Fraxinus excelsior and Fagus sylvatica, in the south, Picea/Larix and Abies alba were used most frequently. Some items made of Abies alba, Picea and Larix were imported from other parts of the country. We inferred two stages of the use of wood by medieval Polish craftsmen. In the first stage, from the mid-10th century to the late 12th century, they largely used deciduous taxa, the second stage, from the 13th to the 15th centuries, saw the increased use of conifers. We found that the medieval craftsmen chose high-quality wood without defects. Radial wood with the best technical parameters was preferred. Its share increased in the late Middle Ages, this can be attributed to the craftsmen's increasing familiarity with carpentry techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Beskid Niski Mts. and the foothill area of the Carpathians are under-represented in pollen data due to the unfavorable conditions for peat formation. This contribution is a review supplemented by new palaeobotanical data dedicated to the late Holocene history of local forests. Pollen, wood and other plant macrofossils as well as a new approach to isopollen mapping were used to reconstruct the migration of late-successional trees between ca. 3500 and 1900 BC. This time interval was define as a critical period in the development of the modern vegetation belts. We documented a quite late arrival of hornbeam, ca. 3500 BC, from the south and south east as well as optimal development of oak-lime-hornbeam forests forming the foothill belt between 2600 and 1600 BC. The migration of beech occurred ca. 3250–2750 BC and was followed by fir ca. 2800–2500 BC. Beech-fir forests already developed c. 2500 BC, and became common since ca. 1850 BC in the lower montane belt. On a regional scale, transformation of vegetation coincided with phases of climate moistening. The auxiliary role of the Corded Ware culture settlement, exploiting for the first time the upper landscape zone in the Carpathians, in the establishment of the new types of woodland, was indicated. Local differences in permanent deforestation of extensive areas were also analyzed. The beginning of this process in the lower landscape zone took place in the Roman Iron Age or in the Early Medieval time. In the upper landscape zone, it occurred in the Late Medieval or modern times, particularly as a result of the Wallachian colonization in the 15th and 16th century AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]