Pitch production during the Roman period: an intensive mountain industry for a globalised economy?
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: The authors' research project in the Pyrenees mountains has located and excavated Roman kilns for producing pitch from pine resin. Their investigations reveal a whole sustainable industry, integrated into the local environmental cycle, supplying pitch to the Roman network and charcoal as a spin-off to the local iron extractors. The paper makes a strong case for applying combined archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations in upland areas, showing mountain industries to have been not so much marginal and pastoral as key players in the economy of the Roman period and beyond it into the seventh century AD.
Source: Antiquity
Institutions: University of Nottingham, Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica, Northern Arizona University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Géographie Physique et Environnementale, Maison des sciences humaines, Université Blaise Pascal, Université de Limoges, Universitat de Barcelona
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2136744231