Palaeoecological investigations towards the reconstruction of woodland and land-use history at Lough Sheeauns, Connemara, western Ireland

Fine-spatial Paleoecological Investigations Towards Reconstructing Late Holocene Environmental Change, Landscape Evolution, and Farming Activity in Barrees, Beara Peninsula, Southwestern Ireland

“…B.P. ; Molloy and O'Connell 1995), i.e., they are more than three millennia older than those reported here. While linear walls dating to the mid-Iron Age have been reported from sites such as Derryinver, western Connemara (Molloy and O'Connell 1993), enclosed landscape is a phenomenon ascribable to the period 1750-1850 in Ireland (Duffy 2007: 40), though enclosure may also have taken place much earlier, at least in parts under Norman control (cf.…”

“…Empirical data, especially those derived from situations where human impact is known or at least can be accurately estimated from archaeological/historical evidence (cf. Berglund 1998, Molloy andO'Connell 1995), further indicate not only the critical importance of small basin size but also other factors such as fi ltering effects of carr vegetation that often fringes bogs and lakes and potential over-representation of pollen derived from plants growing at the sampling site (cf. Bunting 2003, Tauber 1965.…”

A multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental investigation of the findspot of an Iron Age bog body from Oldcroghan, Co. Offaly, Ireland

“…The level of activity is not as intense as during the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age but it is nevertheless substantial, and the phase appears to be part of a wider phenomenon of forest clearance across much of Ireland around this time (e.g. Caseldine et al, 1996Caseldine et al, , 2005Molloy and O'Connell, 1991;O'Connell et al, 2001;Plunkett, 1999;Weir, 1995). In the OC2 record, a fairly persistent level of activity is maintained to the top of the profile, until ca.…”

“…Widespread woodland regeneration seems to have occurred at this time through much of Ireland, although infrequent anthropogenic indicators point to continued human impact on the landscape (e.g. Caseldine et al, 1996Caseldine et al, , 2005Molloy and O'Connell, 1991;Plunkett, 1999;Weir, 1995). In the OC2 record, this closing up of the landscape includes a substantial rise in Ulmus pollen.…”

Prehistoric gold markers and environmental change: A two-age system for standing stones in western Ireland

“…Thus, blanket-bog growth may have been initiated early in the Neolithic, but it did not overwhelm the woodland at Srahwee until the end of the Neolithic or the early Bronze Age. This is comparable to the case of Céide fields in north County Mayo where peat encroached diachronously over the Neolithic landscape of farmland, ritual monuments, and settlement sites, following their abandonment (Molloy and O'Connell, 1995;Caulfield et al, 1998). The fact that peat growth followed, rather than caused, abandonment of agricultural activity at both Céide fields to the north and in the Connemara National Park to the south (Molloy and O'Connell, 1993;O'Connell, 1994), supports the hypothesis that climate change promoted peat growth more strongly than anthropogenic factors in the Murrisk Peninsula.…”