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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Neolithic/Bronze Age deforestation in UK |
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CR 29 posts |
Jul 09, 2018, 10:23
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Holocene Forest = Always an interesting, difficult and deep topic. Various paleoenviromental lines of evidence present rather different pictures of post-ice age landscape, and serious questions can be asked about the reality of Northern Europe ever having had 'complete' climax-forest cover (eg of the German Fairy Tale kind) In Britain, key areas of interest are large river valleys and areas in the south which were beyond the permafrost limit, and where migrating herds (eg first reindeer, then deer as climate changed) maintained steppe-tundra habitats (particularly by eating tree saplings). Groups of people 'following' these herds are likely to have also encouraged grassland through regular burn -off, especially as scrub and understory developed. In the early Holocene, although animal and human groups change with climate, still large migrating herds are present. The paleoenvironmental evidence form several valleys and chalk-upland sites shows that large tracts of open grass-land were maintained throughout this changing climate (by grazing and burning) and continued on in this condition. >>>Some places may have NEVER been forested during the Holocene, despite climax forest being present regionally.
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CR 29 posts |
Jul 09, 2018, 10:23
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Holocene Forest = Always an interesting, difficult and deep topic. Various paleoenviromental lines of evidence present rather different pictures of post-ice age landscape, and serious questions can be asked about the reality of Northern Europe ever having had 'complete' climax-forest cover (eg of the German Fairy Tale kind) In Britain, key areas of interest are large river valleys and areas in the south which were beyond the permafrost limit, and where migrating herds (eg first reindeer, then deer as climate changed) maintained steppe-tundra habitats (particularly by eating tree saplings). Groups of people 'following' these herds are likely to have also encouraged grassland through regular burn -off, especially as scrub and understory developed. In the early Holocene, although animal and human groups change with climate, still large migrating herds are present. The paleoenvironmental evidence form several valleys and chalk-upland sites shows that large tracts of open grass-land were maintained throughout this changing climate (by grazing and burning) and continued on in this condition. >>>Some places may have NEVER been forested during the Holocene, despite climax forest being present regionally.
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CR 29 posts |
Jul 09, 2018, 10:24
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[quote="CR"]Holocene Forest = Always an interesting, difficult and deep topic. Various paleoenviromental lines of evidence present rather different pictures of post-ice age landscape, and serious questions can be asked about the reality of Northern Europe ever having had 'complete' climax-forest cover (eg of the German Fairy Tale kind) In Britain, key areas of interest are large river valleys and areas in the south which were beyond the permafrost limit, and where migrating herds (eg first reindeer, then deer as climate changed) maintained steppe-tundra habitats (particularly by eating tree saplings). Groups of people 'following' these herds are likely to have also encouraged grassland through regular burn -off, especially as scrub and understory developed. In the early Holocene, although animal and human groups change with climate, still large migrating herds are present. The paleoenvironmental evidence form several valleys and chalk-upland sites shows that large tracts of open grass-land were maintained throughout this changing climate (by grazing and burning) and continued on in this condition. >>>Some places may have NEVER been forested during the Holocene, despite climax forest being present regionally.
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CR 29 posts |
Jul 09, 2018, 10:26
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A key example is Salisbury Plain...this seems to have been part of large tracts of open grassland in the south that were continued from the Pleistocene into the Holocene through behaviors of animal herds and human hunter-herders living alongside them . Salisbury Plain (and other places) should be understood to be anthropogenicaly modified/managed landscapes from the earliest times. The extent of modification includes evidence for populations of tundra-scrub-woodland(conifer) communities surviving as an isolated committees mixed with developing deciduous forest and open grassland - a situation that could only by possible through combined animal/human influence. It seems possible that the ecologically distinctive patches of surviving tundra-woodland in the south (e.g. Salisbury Plain), contrasting with other regional trees and open-grassland, had significance as a particular habitat and associated meanings for people. (... insert speculation ...) Overall, there is a long running debate in North European paleoenvironmental studies as to how we model things like forest-cover from the various available lines of evidence, and a legacy of revived opinion and interpretations ..... A long story... Take home this :: Thick, dense, climax (fairy-tale type) forest may have been limited in extent. The role of humans and animals more likely produced a mosaic of high-low and open-closed canopy, possibly with 'park-like' habitats being common (ie grass/herbs with spread-out mature tress and very little understory. Critically, large tracts of grazed-grassland may never have been forested and were part of human-animal migration routes for many 1000's of years. > > > Neolithic farmers did not have to cut down vast numbers of trees >> they first settled areas which were already NOT heavily forested >> the pollen evidence for largest impacts of deforestation is during Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (and quite likely direct linked to clearance for cattle, rather then crops, which is somewhat less demanding). I was always amazed at the sheer effort of cutting down climax forest with neolithic axes... turns out they thought the same, and did not bother either :) (if possible). Mass forest clearance is a feature of later prehistory, and occurs in the context of large 'tribal' polities, coercive labor and slavery, and probably at the behest of aristocracy in an increasingly stratified/hierarchical society! A vast/excessive number of ditches (very labor intensive) were also dug in late prehistory, again pointing to the increasing social control exercised by elite aristocrats.[/quote] (sry guys for repeated post > half post dissapeared and posts went all squiffy :()
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