Climate Change and Human Impact on the Landscape : Studies in Palaeoecology and Environmental Archaeology

I am pleased to present this volume of invited reviews and research case studies, produced to mark the retirement of Professor A. G. Smith - one of the leading researchers in Holocene palaeoecology. A. G. Smith took his first degree at the University of Sheffield, graduating in 1951 with a first-class honours degree in Botany. His doctorate was awarded in 1956 for a study in late-Quaternary vege­ tational history, based in the Sub-Department of Quaternary Research at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of the late Sir Harry Godwin, FRS. He then researched and taught at Queen's University, Belfast, from 1954, leading the Nuffield Quaternary Research Unit there, becoming Co-Director of the Palaeoecology Laboratory from 1964. He was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Botany (later, Plant Science) at University College, Cardiff, in 1973, and retired from the School of Pure and Applied Biology at the renamed University of Wales College, Cardiff, in August 1991. Although his principal interests have been concerned with the post-glacial environmental history of the British Isles, Professor Smith has significantly in­ fluenced many researchers elsewhere in their interpretation of biological and other evidence for human modification of the natural environment. Front Matter....Pages i-xxi Front Matter....Pages 1-3 Precision, concepts, controversies: Alan Smith’s contributions to vegetational history and palaeoecology....Pages 5-11 Forward to the past: changing approaches to Quaternary palaeoecology....Pages 13-21 Radiocarbon dating and the palynologist: a realistic approach to precision and accuracy....Pages 23-32 Great oaks from little acorns...: precision and accuracy in Irish dendrochronology....Pages 33-41 Front Matter....Pages 43-45 Peat bogs as sources of proxy climatic data: past approaches and future research....Pages 47-56 Forest response to Holocene climatic change: equilibrium or non-equilibrium....Pages 57-65 Isolating the climatic factors in early- and mid-Holocene palaeobotanical records from Scotland....Pages 67-82 Radiocarbon dating of arctic-alpine palaeosols and the reconstruction of Holocene palaeoenvironmental change....Pages 83-96 Front Matter....Pages 97-99 Earliest palynological records of human impact on the world’s vegetation....Pages 101-108 Vegetation change during the Mesolithic in the British Isles: some amplifications....Pages 109-118 The development of high moorland on Dartmoor: fire and the influence of Mesolithic activity on vegetation change....Pages 119-131 Models of mid-Holocene forest farming for north-west Europe....Pages 133-145 The influence of human communities on the English chalklands from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age: the molluscan evidence....Pages 147-156 Mesolithic, early Neolithic, and later prehistoric impacts on vegetation at a riverine site in Derbyshire, England....Pages 157-168 Holocene (Flandrian) vegetation change and human activity in the Carneddau area of upland mid-Wales....Pages 169-183 Early land use and vegetation history at Derryinver Hill, Renvyle Peninsula, Co. Galway, Ireland....Pages 185-199 Front Matter....Pages 201-203 Rapid early-Holocene migration and high abundance of hazel ( Corylus avellana L. ): alternative hypotheses....Pages 205-215 The Origin of Blanket Mire, Revisited....Pages 217-224 Climatic change and human impact during the late Holocene in northern Britain....Pages 225-236 Palaeoecology of floating bogs and landscape change in the Great Lakes drainage basin of North America....Pages 237-245 Front Matter....Pages 201-203 Late-Quaternary climatic change and human impact: commentary and conclusions....Pages 247-259 Back Matter....Pages 261-303 Comprises scholarly reviews and case studies in late Quaternary palaeoecology and environmental archaeology. Coverage includes methods in Quaternary research, records of climatic change and interpretation of evidence for human impact on the landscape.