Identifying historical fuel sources through anthracology and combustion markers: A study of charcoal production sites in Bad Waldsee, SW Germany

Abstract

A new combination of proxies was applied to investigate fuel sources and selection strategies at archaeological sites, in this case, historical charcoal production sites (CPS). In a DFG-funded project studying pre-industrial human-environment relationships in the medieval town of Bad Waldsee, we combined remote sensing data with charcoal and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) records from CPS near the town, targeting past woodland exploitation and wood types used in charcoal production in the postmedieval period. Fagus sp. and Picea sp. wood from relatively large trees, along with some branches, were predominantly charred at these sites. Our results corroborate previous vegetation reconstructions showing that the forest had already been considerably modified by timber extraction, especially preferring conifers for construction. The near absence of Abies sp. in the charcoal assemblages supports the hypothesis that fir trunks were either reserved exclusively for timber or that the forest was already depleted of fir due to prior exploitation. PAH analyses confirmed pyrogenic combustion at the kiln sites, while non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) revealed distinct clusters based on the primary wood types used in charcoal production. In particular, both hardwood and coniferous species were utilized. This confirms the effectiveness of PAH analyses in complementing anthracological data to infer historical woodland exploitation and forest management in the absence of sedimentary records, such as in archaeological settings, or in studies where anatomically identifiable charcoal is absent.