The Holocene 23(1) 127–136 © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0959683612455547 hol.sagepub.com Introduction Located between the Pyrenean and the Massif Central mountain ranges, the Causses of the Haut-Quercy provide one of the most important concentrations of Mesolithic sites known for southern France and have therefore the potential to become a reference area for cultural studies on this transition period (Figure 1). These low-altitude plateaux, at the crossing of karstic and crystalline geological substrates, probably offered contrasted and highly attractive landscapes for hunter-gatherer settlements. Unfortu- nately, the scarcity of palaeobotanical data in this area is a consid- erable obstacle for the understanding of the local environmental features and, more generally, of the vegetation history during the first half of the Holocene. Natural contexts such as peat bogs or wet areas suitable for the recovery of sporopollinic and other non- charred plant material are non-existent in the area. The decisive contribution of palynology is also inoperative in the anthropized sediments of the sites themselves, and the few attempts that were made led to results that were very partial (Renault-Miskovsky, 1983) or inconclusive. Charcoal analysis of archaeological layers could therefore bring a significant contribution to the restitution of Mesolithic vegetation dynamics. However, if it has not significantly affected our perception of material culture, the high number of early excavations (some of which began as soon as the 1920s, see for instance Lacam et al., 1944), is responsible for the lack of palaeoenvironmental data in this area. Consequently, only a single Mesolithic site excavated more recently, Le Sanglier cave, has benefited from an archaeobo- tanical approach (Théry-Parisot, 2001a). The lack of charcoal data concerns the whole prehistory of the Quercy region, since a single analysis from Pégourié cave documents the Upper Palaeolithic (Solari and Vernet, 1995). Azilian levels were excavated at Le Sanglier as well as at Pégourié, whereas the vegetation during the Neolithic is only perceptible through the study of charcoals from Roucadour, which is known only through a few notes (Wainwright et al., 2006). In order to obtain a picture of the local environment during the Mesolithic, this paper presents and discusses the results of the charred wood remains from the sites of Les Fieux (44°52 36 59N and 1°41 18 88E), Les Escabasses (44°43 06 58N and 1°47 54 80E) and Le Cuzoul de Gramat (44°45 08 45N and 1°41 48 00E). After presenting the three sites, we focus on our archaeobotanical methods and results. The evolution of the vege- tation is discussed thanks to a correspondence analysis including the data obtained previously for the sites of Pégourié and Le San- glier. The synthesis of the results obtained in these five sites allows us to propose a reconstruction of the vegetation and its evolution during the first half of the Holocene. 455547HOL 23 1 10.1177/095968 3612455547The HoloceneHenry et al. 2012 1 Université de Nice-CNRS UMR 7264, France 2 Université Toulouse-Le Mirail-CNRS UMR 5608, France 3 CNRS-UMR 5059, France 4 CNRS-Université Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France Corresponding author: Auréade Henry, Université de Nice-CNRS UMR 7264, CEPAM Campus St-Jean d’Angély SJA3, 24 Av. des Diables Bleus, 06357 Nice cedex 4, France. Email: aureade.henry@me.com History and evolution of Mesolithic landscapes in the Haut-Quercy (Lot, France): New charcoal data from archaeological contexts Auréade Henry, 1 Nicolas Valdeyron, 2 Laurent Bouby 3 and Isabelle Théry-Parisot 4 Abstract Charred wood analyses have been performed on three Mesolithic sites located on the Causse de Gramat, a karstic plateau in southwestern France (Lot department): Les Fieux, les Escabasses and le Cuzoul de Gramat. The sites yielded occupations dating from the early to the late Mesolithic (9th to the 6th millennia cal. BC). In the absence of palynological data, charcoal analysis allowed us to characterise the woody environment exploited by Mesolithic hunter- gatherers. Our results point at the minor place of softwoods in the landscape and the local importance of Rosaceae prunoideae, marking an original type of pre-forest vegetation. In order to retrace the local vegetation dynamics, these results are synthesized and discussed thanks to a correspondence analysis, which includes previous anthracological data from Azilian and middle Mesolithic levels of two other sites of the Causse. The homogeneity of the results speaks in favour of the stability of the local environment and confirms the specific vegetation features of the area. Keywords Azilian, charcoal analysis, hunter-gatherers, Mesolithic, southwestern France, woody environment Received 10 February 2012; revised manuscript accepted 28 May 2012 Research paper