Examples of Landscape Transformation in Fore-Pyrenean Catalonia (8th-12th century) as a result of man's influence on grapevine growth

After analysing this part of the Fore-Pyrenean landscape, one deduces two different periods in the anthropoid action. One first period, developed from the 8th to 10th century, in which the forest trees from La Costa del Galliners are cut down and the land is terraced in places protected from winds and the cold winter, using gigantic granite walls to keep the crops safe and through that, making the development of the local cereal agriculture easier as well as introducing little vineyards as something new. And a second period, between the 11th and 1 2th century (although it continues during the following centuries), in which those crops became mixed, adding vines and olive trees to the old cereal fields and alternating the old and the new products. At the same time the cultivated fields were redistributed into smaller portions and the cultivated zone was extended by means of ploughing in the forest area until then not converted. As these last ploughings were made in a hurry, due to the great population increase, there was no time to build protective stone margins.