Well-designed mountain houses feature the only dated Pinus Sylvestris timbers in the southern French Alps
Résumé
In the southern French Alps, Cervières valley (near Briançon city) has traditional houses in which wood plays an important role. Some of them are still inhabited. How old are these houses? How were they built to adapt to the particular environment of this mountain region? What were the lifestyles of the inhabitants, inseparable from this architecture? History, archaeology and dendrochronology provide answers.
Six houses (1620-2061 m a.s.l.) have been sampled. Twenty-eight timbers were made of Pinus t. sylvestris and 18 of Larix decidua. While this region is known for its Larix trees, the predominance of Pinus in these buildings is certainly linked to its availability in the surrounding forests. The oldest timbers (16th c.) come from the houses at the highest altitudes, either because they are older or because they have been less restored. One house, which has not been significantly restored since the 18th century, has been studied in depth. It has 8 levels including 5 levels of wood barn. The barn is mainly composed of Pinus with a chronology covering the period 1530-1731. These Pinus have been dated on a Larix mean chronology and are the only archaeological Pinus dated in the southern French Alps.
Cervières is mentioned from the 12th c. in the texts but the oldest timbers only date from the 16th c. At that time, and more particularly in the 17th-18th c., several barns were built to store large quantities of provisions. This reflects the prosperity of the inhabitants, undoubtedly linked to favourable environmental conditions.
