Early transformation of the landscape

About 5,000 years ago, agriculture was already well established on the plateau. Evidence for this has been found in the remains of the cave and swallow-hole settlements of the period: large carved-stone sickles, food storage jars wrapped tightly in rope, and carbonised grains (barley, several varieties of wheat, etc.). Alongside cereals, people ate the products of livestock rearing (mutton, beef, pork), fishing (salmon) and hunting (stag, roe deer, ibex, brown bear, beaver, hare, rabbit, Western capercaillie, etc.), the latter suggesting a much more forested environment than today.