Abstract
Besides identifying plants used by men, charcoal analysis may also reconstruct the history of forests, based on the study of charcoal from domestic uses. The reliability of this discipline depends on the definition of rigorous mehods, from the archaeological dig to the palaeoenvironmental interpretation, which is the subject of the first part of this work. The second part comprises the applied study of thirteen sites from the Languedoc region, from the late Prehistory to the Antiquity. In the Languedoc, the early balance between the mediterranean oak forest and human activities leads us to review the history of deforestation. The spread of cleared spaces in the plain, constantly disturbed, appear only during the Iron Age ; they may be the first permanent fields. The results from this study, combined with documentary sources, constitute a first synthesis on territory changes.