THE FRENCH PROJECT serves
as an integrative umbrella for a number of individual and collaborative research
efforts that take as their common purpose the study of the evolution of landscape
in the region of Burgundy, France. Project researchers employ ethnography, history,
archaeology, and other social sciences and humanities, as well as geology, climatology,
and the biological sciences, to study the way human activity and physical conditions
jointly modify regions.
Our premise is that understanding past circumstances enables more accurate prediction of future conditions. For example, if it can be shown that combinations of particular land use practices and climatic conditions had specific environmental and societal effects (e.g., upland erosion, outmigration) in the past, the relationship between current activities and anticipated policy and environmental changes can be evaluated. It is especially important to understand these relationships in the world's temperate regions, where most of the planet's food is produced.
Burgundy is a very productive region (cereals, beef, wine, and considerable industrial activity) and a particularly good place to study these relationships. Thanks to abundant historical documents (one of the first, an account by Julius Caesar of the area and its inhabitants, is over 2000 years old) and a relatively complete archaeological record, we know much about past human choices there. Burgundy's physical environment is complex; it is affected by three major climatic regimes, has many different soils, and its terrain includes precipitous mountains and wide valleys.
Both agriculture and
industry have been an important part of Burgundian economy for 2500 years. How
has such diverse activity, often considered fundamentally incompatible, been
sustained? This is the focus of one of the current collaborative projects under
the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Geological
Society of America.
Project members are examining the history of rural lifeways from Celtic and post-Roman conquest times to the present and concomitant changes in patterns of soil erosion and deposition in the river valleys. Aspects of rural life actively inder investigation include 19th and 20th century garden practices (ethnography, ethnohistory), economic and subsistence activities in medieval rural monasteries (archaeology, ethnohistory), contemporary Charolais beef production (ethnography), long-term shifts in settlement (archaeologicial and remote sensing surveys) and demography (parish records, other archival materials), and the production, distribution, and utilization of common-ware ceramics in the Roman period (archaeology). The geology of the Arroux and Loire River valleys tells us which periods of Burgundian history were characterized by severe erosion.
Together, these data will enable us to understand how human activity has been in and out of balance with Burgundy's variable environmental conditions. This is important to understand because most indicators suggest that global warming will bring marked changes to the region, including seasonal "slippage" and more frequent droughts and hailstorms. The work in which we are currently engaged will enable us to evaluate how policy decisions such as the Common Agricultural Policy and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) impact economic production and the landscape today and in the future.
Begun in 1975 when Carole Crumley taught at the University of Missouri, the French Project came to UNC-CH in 1977 when she joined the faculty. Current Project participants include students and faculty from Rutgers (New Jersey) and Oxford (UK) Universities, the University of Nebraska, and UniversitC de Franche-ComtC (Besanaon, France) as well as at UNC-CH.
Previous Project research
has included pioneering work in archaeological excavation and survey and in
remote sensing, studies of contemproary periodic markets and midsummer's eve
festivals, the linguistic and dialect history of the region, the widespread
influence of the Burgundian goddess Epona, the Celtic and Roman road networks,
a study of the relationship between landscape and power, and overviews of Burgundian
historical ecology (including climatic history) and of medieval history.
These studies and others are published in Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective, Carole L. Crumley and William H. Marquardt, eds., Academic Press (1987).
Related research may be found in: