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This paper focuses on the relationship between human communities and wood resources in the Sabor valley (Trás-os-Montes region, northeast Portugal) during the Early and Middle Bronze Age. Charcoal from three archaeological sites—Terraço das Laranjeiras, Foz do Medal and Quinta de Crestelos—was analysed. As in other Early-Middle Bronze Age sites in Western Iberia, the majority of the samples were recovered from pits, which complicates charcoal debris interpretation. The charcoal analysis suggests that the formation processes of the archaeobotanical record involved both natural and anthropic factors. The charcoal assemblages studied showed that taxonomic variability was strongly conditioned by the number of fragments produced per feature. Hearths, pits and post-holes provided information about the consumption of wood resources, highlighting the importance of taxa such as Fraxinus sp. and Quercus spp. combined with shrubby species including small trees ( Juniperus sp., Arbutus unedo , Fabaceae, Cistus sp. and Erica spp.) and attesting the presence of Olea europaea within Middle Bronze Age contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being a perishable material, wood can nonetheless show in its full complexity the materiality of daily life activities, identity construction, economic exploitation, and adaptation in colonial processes. The study of two sets of wood samples in well-defined archaeological colonial contexts from the site of Heping Dao, on the northern coast of Taiwan, has unveiled otherwise unknown aspects of native exchange, adoption of indigenous practices, and differences and similarities between early European colonialism and Japanese imperialism in Asia-Pacific. Despite the constraints of taxonomic identification in subtropical (and tropical) areas, the use of different coniferous wood types has been recorded: C upressaceae, cf. C hamaecyparis spp., cf. C ryptomeria japonica and cf. C unninghamia spp. The paper highlights the close relationship between wooden objects and diachronic historical processes and stresses the complexity of their study in colonial contexts, with implications toward the prehistoric period. • Long histories of wood and forest exploitation in Taiwan start to emerge. • Insights into European and Japanese colonialism and new inferences into the Taiwanese prehistory are obtained from the analysis of worked wood. • The archaeometrical study of wooden crafts offers new historical insights as well as a productive approach to the field of tropical wood analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]