Medieval Slash-And- Burn Cultivation: Strategic Or Adapted Land Use in the Swedish Mining District?" Environment and History 8, No
The White Horse Press Full citation: Emanuelsson, Marie, and Ulf Segerstrom. "Medieval Slash-and- Burn Cultivation: Strategic or Adapted Land Use in the Swedish Mining District?" Environment and History 8, no. 2 (May 2002): 173–96. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/3117. Rights: All rights reserved. © The White Horse Press 2002. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism or review, no part of this article may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the publishers. For further information please see http://www.whpress.co.uk. Medieval Slash-and-Burn Cultivation: Strategic or Adapted Land Use in the Swedish Mining District? MARIE EMANUELSSON1 Department of Forest Vegetation Ecology Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SE – 901 83 Umeå ULF SEGERSTRÖM Department of Forest Vegetation Ecology Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SE – 901 83 Umeå ABSTRACT The general view in Swedish historiography of an inherent conflict between iron-making and the practice of slash-and-burn is questioned on the basis of this palaeoecological case study of repeated slash-and-burn cultivation from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries in the mining district of central Sweden. An alternative thesis of a mutual association between iron-making and the practice of slash-and-burn is put forward. Deliberately used by the mining peasant, slash-and-burn was a way to turn forest resources into cereals, animal fodder and charcoal for iron-making. However, the initial practice of slash-and- burn ceased after c.
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