Environmental History in Ostrogothic Italy 413
It is worth illustrating some of this peninsular diversity. From the mid 6th
century, high up the Enza valley in the Ligurian sector of the Apennines selec-
tive deforestation reconfigured what had been a mixed woodland. The result
was a ‘wooded meadow system’ in which beech trees prevailed. This new
woodland was maintained for over a century in the interests of herding and
pasture.91 By contrast, on the Tyrrhenian coast of Tuscany, Scarlino’s human
population diminished between the 5th and the 6th century, and the nearby
deforested hills (which had furnished fuel for Roman mining operations on
Elba, visible from Scarlino) filled again with trees, although not before erosion
choked the local lagoons with silt.92 At Filattiera in the 5th and 6th centuries
people drove oaks and walnuts into insignificance, fostered the chestnuts and
firs they found more useful, and burned for fuel the alder wood cleared from
low-lying plots they farmed.93 Just north, also in Liguria, the woods around the
eastern Roman centre of S. Antonino evolved in Late Antiquity according to
human strategies, to the detriment of deciduous oak but to the advantage of
hornbeam.94 Across the watershed, in Piedmont, Torre S. Stefano Belbo’s pol-
lens suggest a retreat of agriculture. Beech, fir, and pine advanced, diversifying
the mixed oak woods from the 4th to the 6th century.95 Further east, around
the Ostrogothic fort at Monte Barro that guarded one of the main thorough-
fares from Alpine passes, people practised planned forestry before abandoning
the settlement around 580. They selected wood used for heating and build-
ing according to species and age, and evidently made charcoal from coppiced
beech trees cut on ten-year cycles, but always during the dormant season when
such activities are least likely to damage the tree and when the wood contains
the least water, and from north-facing woods whose growth was slowest and
wood densest.96 Finally, the woods around S. Michele di Trino just west of
Milan underwent the most dramatic anthropogene changes between the 5th
and 7th centuries, with strong overall reductions of woodland, especially of
oak, in favour of fields, meadows, and groves of chestnut and elm trees.97
In spite of the differences in density, species composition, and chronology of
growth one salient characteristic throughout the post-classical peninsula was
the full integration of woodland into economic and social systems. Whether
91 Davite/Moreno, “Des ‘saltus’ aux ‘alpes’ ”, pp. 139–41.
92 Cucini, “Topografia”, pp. 162–3.
93 Rottolo/Negri, “I resti”, pp. 201–2, 208.
94 Castiglioni, “I carboni”, pp. 620–5: fire gave hornbeam its advantage over oak.
95 Caramiello/Zena, “Analisi polliniche”, p. 43.
96 Castelletti, “L’economia”, p. 220; Castiglioni et al., “I resti”, pp. 227, 239.
97 Caramiello et al., “Analisi paleobotaniche”, pp. 592, 596–7.