1,721,032 research outputs found
Bronze Age upland settlement decline in southwest England: testing the climate change hypothesis
No full textThe division of land on Dartmoor during the Bronze Age by the construction of moor-wide
boundaries known as reaves represents a significant development in agricultural practice and land tenure.
Previous research relating to the Dartmoor reaves suggests this way of life may have continued for no
longer than 200-400 years. It has been suggested that their abandonment occurred as the result of a
deteriorating climate, although there are no published palaeoclimatic reconstructions from the area. We
therefore test the hypothesis that on Dartmoor, a marked climatic deterioration occurred in the late Bronze
Age that can be linked to the abandonment of the reaves. A palaeoclimatic reconstruction derived from
testate amoebae and peat humification analyses is presented from Tor Royal Bog, central Dartmoor, the first
such record from southwest England. A major shift to a cooler and/or wetter climate is inferred from ca.
1395-1155 cal BC that is coincident with the period hypothesised as encompassing the abandonment. This
climatic deterioration is replicated in sites in northern Britain, suggesting it was a widespread event. It is
concluded that while the evidence supports a climatically forced retreat, there are a range of other socioeconomic
factors that must also be taken into consideration
Characterising the late prehistoric, 'Romano-British' and medieval landscape, and dating the emergence of a regionally distinct agricultural system in South West Britain
Full text linkPalaeoenvironmental evidence for the character of lowland cultural landscapes during the last 2500 years in Britain is poorly understood, owing to a combination of an over-reliance on data from upland sequences, and because lowland mires are typically located in positions marginal to areas of settlement and agriculture. This paper presents an attempt to derive environmental evidence for this time period from a lowland context in order to characterise the key periods of change and continuity in the lowlands. The study focuses on mid-Devon, in South West Britain, and uses small pollen sites which are embedded within the historic landscape. The South West is a particularly poor region for lowland environmental data, and has until now been reliant on upland sequences.The results show that continuity, rather than abrupt change, has characterised the landscape from the later Iron Age to the early medieval period (around cal AD 800). There is no palynologically distinct Roman period in the data, contrary to evidence from the high uplands of Exmoor that suggests a decline of the agricultural system during the immediate post-Roman period. Around cal AD800 there is a change in the agricultural system from predominantly pastoral activities to one that led to relatively high proportions of cereal pollen appearing in the sequences, which is interpreted here as marking the onset of convertible husbandry, a regionally distinct agricultural system which is recorded from AD 1350, but whose origins are not documented. This agricultural system remained in place until the post-medieval period, when the predominant agricultural regime returned to pastoralism around AD1750. The data clearly show discrepancies between the high uplands and the lowlands, demonstrating the potential hazards of extrapolating upland sequences to lowlands environments
Pollen profile STONETOR, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
Lithology of sediment core CUTHILL1, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
Pollen profile WINNEYS, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
Pollen profile CUTHILL2, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
Lithology of sediment core WINNEYS, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
Pollen profile ESGRYN, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
Pollen profile GORSFAWR, Gors Fawr Bog, United Kingdom
No full textThe EPD (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net) accepted species name is given in the parameter comment. This dataset was archived on 2010-05-11 from the EPD database
Pollen profile NORTHTWI, United Kingdom
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2014-11-03 from the EPD database (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net)
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