Abstract
During the last thirty years, archaeological charcoal has been considered by the scientific community as a strictly paleoenvironmental object used to measure the impact of human activity on vegetal environment. Anthracological data helped writing the eco-history of rural societies and developing the archaeology of past landscapes. Yet, charcoal also records agrarian practices and technical gestures. Such reading requires using original protocols to question wood anatomy in terms of historical anthropology. Thanks to recent advances in picture analysis, the quantitative eco-anatomy of wood samples and later of charcoals was able to develop and allow such approach. Their application to archaeological anthracology is quite recent and, in the present case, on samples of medieval olive-tree charcoals. The aim is to detect for the first time an agricultural practice : irrigation, by discriminating individuals using referenced anatomical signatures on woods and charcoals of the present day and with the help of factorial analysis. This paper is a methodological contribution to the history of medieval fruit growing. It somewhat changes the way we see one of the emblematic species of trees of Mediterranean agriculture.