Late Holocene vegetational history, human impact and pollen representativity variations in northern Cumbria, England

Mid- to late-Holocene vegetational and land-use change in the Hadrian's Wall region: a radiocarbon-dated pollen sequence from Crag Lough, Northumberland, England

“…These sites have prompted much interest in the environment of the region in the Roman period, resulting in production of several pollen sequences from mires close to the Wall [2,30,35,36,80] (and see discussion by Dark [28]), and pollen analysis of deposits directly associated with the Wall and its forts [51,80]. Mires have also provided information on longer-term regional vegetation history [18,30,34,55,59,60,65,66,78] and climate change [2][3][4]44,52,53].…”

Hillslope gullying in the Solway Firth — Morecambe Bay region, Great Britain: Responses to human impact and/or climatic deterioration?

“…Rural depopulation probably resulted in woodland recovery in marginal areas (Winchester, 2000), and there is supporting pollen evidence for this in the Bowland Fells (Mackay and Tallis, 1994). Palaeoecological evidence for the recovery, after 500 BP, comes in the Lake District from woodland reductions during the last 500 years (Dumayne-Peaty and Barber, 1998;Chiverrell et al, 2004), and is reflected in expansions of pastoral indicators in the uplands, which have also been attributed to Cistercian land practices encouraging a massive expansion of sheep grazing (Oldfield, 1963;Pennington, 1970). Pollen data reveal declines in Betula and C. vulgaris, and expansions of Poaceae and Cyperaceae in the Borrowdale area (Lake District) at this time (Wild et al, 2001), which have been used to link late Holocene colluvial fan development to a combination of localised expansion of sheep rearing, associated woodland reduction and probable climatic deterioration.…”

“…BP. In the Lake District (Dumayne-Peaty and Barber, 1998;Wimble et al, 2000;Chiverrell et al, 2004) and Southern Uplands (Tipping, 1995(Tipping, , 1999a) the earliest evidence for widespread reduction in woodland cover is also during the late Iron Age and Romano-British period (2800-1700 BP). In the Lake District, although this clearance is widespread (Pennington, 1978a(Pennington, ,b, 1991, the magnitude, duration and timing do vary spatially, perhaps suggesting that the Iron Age woodland clearance and continuing agricultural expansion into the Romano-British period had a distinctly piecemeal impact on the landscape.…”

“…BP) and particularly the Norse settlement period (1200-950 cal. BP) (Dickinson, 1975;Pennington, 1978a,b;Dumayne-Peaty and Barber, 1998;Wimble et al, 2000;Chiverrell et al, 2004). In the central Lake District Pennington (1997) identified substantial reductions in woodland dated to 1270-1110 cal.…”

Mid- to late-Holocene vegetation history of Greater Exmoor, UK: estimating the spatial extent of human-induced vegetation change

“…As a result, our understanding of landscape change and human impact on vegetation tends to be at a regional level, and there are few data to demonstrate the importance of local changes within landscapes, and crucially, the spatial dimensions of human-induced vegetation change. Dumayne-Peaty and Barber (1998) have demonstrated the importance of using multiple pollen profiles from single sites to demonstrate vegetation differences on a small spatial scale.…”