Who Are We? History of the French Project

TRIQUETE “threefold quest” is a non-profit organization that links traditional environmental knowledge with conventional scientific information in scholarly research, educational experiences, and policy applications. Our focus is on the region of Burgundy, France, but the lessons the region can teach are global in significance.

Our logo combines three related meanings. First, the tripartite form's deep history is that of the 'triskele' (triquête in French), an ancient symbol of motion and reincarnation. Dating from at least Neolithic times, the symbol is a central element in Celtic religion. Secondly, it evokes the 'three-winged bird,' an example of emergent behavior in complex non-linear systems; the three winged bird visually represents a system in chaos. To produce it, a simple non-linear equation was set to go through a million iterations, with each result plotted as a point in three-dimensional computer phase space. As the system evolved, the three-winged shape emerged, demonstrating the inherent order of chaotic systems, only visible over time. Finally, the logo symbolizes the three central activities of our organization (research, education, policy applications).

THE FRENCH PROJECT serves as an integrative umbrella for a number of individual and collaborative research efforts that take as their common purpose the study of the evolution of landscape in the region of Burgundy, France. Project researchers employ ethnography, history, archaeology, and other social sciences and humanities, as well as geology, climatology, and the biological sciences, to study the way human activity and physical conditions jointly modify regions.

Our premise is that understanding a region’s past enables more accurate prediction of future conditions. For example, if it can be shown that historic combinations of land use practices and climatic conditions had specific environmental and societal effects (e.g., upland erosion, out-migration), the relationship between current activities and anticipated policy and environmental changes can be evaluated. It is especially important to understand these relationships in the world's temperate regions, where most of the planet's food is produced.

Burgundy is a very productive region (cereals, cattle and sheep, wine, and considerable industrial activity) and a particularly good place to study these relationships. The region’s physical environment is complex. Three major climatic regimes determine the weather, and a geological history including both marine and mountain building eras result in many different soils and commercial products (e.g., iron ore, coal, uranium, gold, marble). Several of the largest rivers in Western Europe begin in Burgundy, or flow through it (Saône, Seine, Loire). Thanks to abundant historical documents (one of the first, an account by Julius Caesar of the area and its inhabitants, is over 2000 years old) and a relatively complete archaeological record, we know a great deal about the choices Burgundy’s earlier inhabitants made.

Both agriculture and industry have been important motors of Burgundian economy for 2500 years. Farming and husbandry have a 6000 year history and the region is one of the earliest places in the world to have made carbon steel (300 BCE). The industrial-scale production of ceramics is over 2000 years old. How has such diverse activity, often considered fundamentally incompatible, been sustained for so long? Have there ever been periods of economic collapse? What contemporary challenges are there to this durable relationship of agriculture and industry? This is the focus of one of the current collaborative projects.

Project members are examining the history of rural and industrial life from Celtic and Roman times two millennia ago to the present, using a variety of information. Long-term shifts in the character of settlements (archaeology and remote sensing) and population (parish and tax records, other archival materials) allow us to determine which aspects of the built environment are enduring and which are ephemeral. Shifts in the overall percentages of the landscape in agriculture, pastureland and forest allow us to interpret changes in soil erosion and deposition in the river valleys (archaeology, palynology, geology, ethnohistory, informatics). The long-term history of certain aspects of rural life, such as garden practices (ethnography, ethnobotany, ethnohistory), fish farming, and animal husbandry (ethnography, ethnohistory, geology, climatology), reveal technical adjustments to environmental, economic, and social change.

Together, these data will enable us to understand how human activity has been in and out of balance with Burgundy's variable environmental conditions. This is important to understand because most indicators suggest that global warming will bring marked changes to the region, including seasonal "slippage" and more frequent droughts and hailstorms. The work in which we are currently engaged will enable us to evaluate how policy decisions such as the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) impact economic production and the landscape today and in the future.

Begun in 1975 when Carole Crumley taught at the University of Missouri, the French Project came to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill when she joined the faculty there in 1977. Current Project participants include students and faculty from UNC-CH as well as the Universities of Pittsburgh and Edinboro (PA), Strasbourg and Bourgogne ( France), and the Centre Archéologique Européen du Mont Beuvray ( Glux-en-Glenne, France).

Project research has included pioneering practical work in archaeological excavation and survey and in remote sensing, and the innovative theoretical approaches of historical ecology and complex systems studies (especially hetararchy). Studies of periodic markets and midsummer's eve festivals, the linguistic and dialect history of the region, the widespread influence of the Burgundian goddess Epona, the Celtic and Roman road networks, the enduring relationship between landscape and power, and overviews of Burgundian historical ecology and of the region’s classical, medieval, and early modern history are published in Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective, Carole L. Crumley and William H. Marquardt, eds., Academic Press (1987). A new volume is in preparation, with publication expected in 2008.

Last updated 5/13/2008.