Logging in European Antiquity

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—A study* uncovers evidence of the rise and fall of the wood economy under the Roman Empire in Central-Western Europe. The expansion of the Roman Empire north of the Alps in the first century BCE was accompanied by rapid cultural and technological changes. Wood was a key resource in expanding and establishing the empire in central-western Europe. However, evidence of logging is largely lacking in the written historical record. Bernhard Muigg, Andrea Seim, and colleagues compiled a dataset of 20,397 tree-ring series that were dendrochronologically dated. The samples came from archaeological excavations covering the period 300 BCE to 700 CE. The analysis showed that logging increased following the Roman expansion. Although the onset, intensity, and duration of logging varied by region, as time progressed and demand for wood ostensibly increased, logging reached primary forests far from the settlements—a development that suggests infrastructure and organization of the wood sector. Around the mid-third century CE, logging trends shifted and old growth forests, with trees that were at least 200 years old, became overexploited. Logging appears to have slowed during the fourth and fifth centuries CE, with the ages of trees progressively increasing thereafter. According to the authors, the findings reveal the impact of Roman expansion on the environmental and economic history of central-western Europe.

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Ground plan of a roman-period wooden building from the vicus (civil settlement) of Eschenz, Switzerland. Credit: Amt für Archäologie Thurgau (Schweiz), archaeologie.tg.ch.

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Roman-period water infrastructure in posts-and-planks construction from the vicus (civil settlement) of Eschenz, Switzerland. Credit: Amt für Archäologie Thurgau (Schweiz), archaeologie.tg.ch.

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