The importance of societal factors in shaping forest area, structure and composition through economic activity, policy, governance, and population changes is frequently acknowledged in ecologic studies, however the specific socioeconomic factors that lead to land use change through time are rarely articulated. We present a consilience-driven approach for integrating socioeconomic and paleoecologic data to explore land use legacies and interpret causes of past abrupt environmental change. We combine paleoecologic history reconstructed from pollen analysis of lake sediments and contemporary historical narratives of socioeconomic change developed from archival sources illustrated by three case studies from two sites in the Italian Apennines. We found that in the Rieti Basin, central Italy, between 850 and 900 AD (coeval with the beginning of the Medieval Climate Anomaly—MCA), under the new Carolingian rule, the imperially sponsored monastery at Farfa consolidated small landholdings, leading to more active land management and significant forest loss for agricultural activities. In contrast, at Pollino in southern Italy between 1050 and 1100 AD, also during the MCA, Norman conquest helped to convert a deforested landscape into an actively managed fir forest for timber needed for construction. At both sites, depopulation and land management between 1350 and 1400 AD caused by the Black Death, led to forest rewilding, however each site took a different trajectory. The studies presented offer examples of how the integration of detailed historical narratives with high-resolution paleoecologic reconstructions can provide a more nuanced examination of the interrelationship between societal factors and climate forcing in shaping land-use legacies and has the capacity to illuminate the link between specific human pressures and pathways of ecological change over many centuries.

中文翻译：

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与重建林地利用遗产相关的土地利用历史的一致性驱动方法

社会因素在通过经济活动、政策、治理和人口变化塑造森林面积、结构和组成方面的重要性在生态研究中经常得到承认，但很少阐明导致土地利用随时间变化的特定社会经济因素。我们提出了一种整合社会经济和古生态数据的一致性驱动方法，以探索土地利用遗产并解释过去突然环境变化的原因。我们结合了从湖泊沉积物的花粉分析中重建的古生态历史和从档案来源发展而来的社会经济变化的当代历史叙述，这些历史叙述来自意大利亚平宁山脉两个地点的三个案例研究。我们发现，在意大利中部的列蒂盆地，公元 850 年到 900 年之间（与中世纪气候异常——MCA 的开始同时期），在新加洛林王朝统治下，法尔法的帝国赞助修道院巩固了小块土地，导致更积极的土地管理和农业活动的重大森林损失。相比之下，公元 1050 年至 1100 年间，在意大利南部的波利诺，也是在马华时期，诺曼征服帮助将一片被砍伐的景观转变为积极管理的冷杉林，以供建筑所需的木材使用。在这两个地点，公元 1350 年至 1400 年间由黑死病引起的人口减少和土地管理导致森林重新野化，但每个地点的发展轨迹不同。