Résumé
In Morocco, the Haouz region has been the focus of extensive archaeological, bioarchaeological and ethnological research over the last decade, centred around the medieval and modern town of Aghmat, located at the foot of the High Atlas mountains. Populated since at least the 10th century, Aghmat has undergone a complex history, evolving from an urban centre, a dynamic economic hub and brief capital of the Almoravid empire during the medieval period to a rural locality structured, in the post-medieval and modern periods, by its agricultural and craft activities. This region has thus witnessed major socio-economic transformations in parallel with the climatic oscillations affecting the whole of the western Mediterranean, both of which have probably influenced the relationship between the populations and the agricultural and forestry systems exploited. Since 2016, an interdisciplinary archaeological project combining archaeobotanical and isotopic approaches has sought to reconstruct this agricultural and landscape history of Aghmat and to examine how its inhabitants evolved their practices in the face of environmental and socio-economic change, particularly their agropastoral practices (cereal growing, fruit arboriculture, fodder production), resource management (irrigation, deforestation, fuel production) and land-use strategy. This paper highlights changes in the way plant resources were exploited at the end of the Middle Ages, and in particular a marked rise in olive-growing in the 14th century, potentially as a result of the opening up of new terroirs taken from the forest and changes in irrigation strategies. These results provide essential information for gaining a better understanding of how populations in the past reacted to environmental and economic pressures, transforming their agrosystems and reshaping the landscape.