Abstract
Forests are complex ecosystems, ultimate environment in most of inhabitable areas of our planet, toward which successional processes are streamed. Through the study of this environment, many cultural phenomena can be studied.
The history of forests and the history of civilizations are largely parallel. For Mankind, forests are living environment, source of subsistence, and source of energy (largely before discovery of fossil fuels).
Even an old human impact can be reconstructed from the ecological state of present forests.