Blanket peat in the Scottish Highlands: timing, cause, spread and the myth of environmental determinism

Abstract

This contribution describes the geomorphic, stratigraphic, palaeoclimatic, palaeoecological and 14C dating evidence for the timing within the present interglacial of blanket peat initiation and extension (‘spread’) from five localities throughout the upland and northern regions of Scotland. The results suggest that blanket peat was common or abundant over much of the highland landscape within a few thousand years of the beginning of the Holocene period. Blanket peat developed either as an inevitable but rapid end-stage to soil development in this generally cold and wet climate or was promoted by climatic change. There is no evidence from this data-set that blanket peat developed as a result of anthropogenic activities. It is suggested, indeed, that farming communities successfully resisted the natural spread of peat across their fields

Response to late Bronze Age climate change of farming communities in north east Scotland

“…Radiocarbon dating of blanket peat south east of Loch Farlary has shown that it began to form early in the Holocene, around 8000 cal. BP (Tipping, 2007;Tipping et al, 2007a,b) and similar conclusions come from vegetation analyses around Rhilochan (Fig. 2) (Birks, 1975;Froyd, 2002).…”

“…Woodland was rarer in the uplands, and so evidence for woodland management is only recorded around Reidchalmai. Blanket peat was more extensive in the uplands, and by Loch Farlary its cutting for fuel has been inferred (Tipping et al, 2007: see also Carter (1998a)). We cannot demonstrate the absence of this activity in the lowlands, but around Reidchalmai trees provided alternative fuel sources into the Iron Age.…”

Vegetation response to restoration management of a blanket bog damaged by drainage and afforestation

“…EU law protects 1400 km 2 of Flow Country peatlands: 7% and 12%, respectively, of UK land designated under the Birds and Habitats Directives. Flow Country bogs have been largely treeless for millennia (Charman, ); the effects of past human influence on this state are uncertain (Tallis, ; Tipping, ). Planted forests in the area are associated with reduced densities of key bird species on adjacent bogs (Hancock et al., ; Wilson et al., ), increasing the impetus for restoration.…”

The history of eagles in Britain and Ireland: an ecological review of placename and documentary evidence from the last 1500 years

“…Even allowing for additional Golden Eagles breeding at low densities in forests (Endnote a), this still implies more than a doubling of population size in the millennia up to 500 CE. This seems most likely a response to increases in the extent of open upland habitat (Tallis 1991, Tipping 1994, 2008 available to Golden Eagles during the millennia between the Atlantic climate optimum (when woodland cover and Whitetailed Eagle numbers seem likely to have been at their maximum; Yalden & Albarella 2009) and the AngloSaxon era, before when we assume that no places were named for 'earns'. If this is the case, then it is possible that this increase represented population recovery, as recent genetic studies indicate an effective population size (albeit with wide confidence intervals) for British and Irish Golden Eagles larger than our estimate of actual population size for about 500 CE, and a likely large population decline prior to the last glaciation (Bourke et al 2010).…”