Prehistoric communities used and managed woodland resources for everyday domestic needs (fuel) and other more specialized purposes (e.g. woodcrafts and construction). A source of information for the relationship between humans and their vegetational setting are the anthracological remains (the residues of burnt wood found in archaeological sites). Their study provides information about past vegetation, the management of woodlands for fuel, woodcrafts and subsistence practices.

We examine here a geographically and culturally diverse set of prehistoric sites in Greece from a deep-time perspective: from the Late Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. The available evidence indicates that different vegetation types developed under the changing climate of the Late Glacial/Holocene transition. In the course of the Holocene, Mesolithic and Neolithic communities used the local woodlands, which presented variable composition dependent on different latitudinal and altitudinal locations. Selected sites from northern Greece, the Peloponnese and Crete are presented, which show the contribution of anthracological studies in discussing the management of woodland resources and the formation of the anthropogenic landscapes.