Bronze Age upland settlement decline in southwest England: testing the climate change hypothesis

Amesbury, Matthew J.; Charman, Dan J.; Fyfe, Ralph; Langdon, Peter G.; West, Steven L.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2007.02.010

Cited by 45 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Many records from peat archives have proven to be useful for reconstructing the climatic changes (Schoning et al, 2005;Booth et al, 2006;Oksanen & Valiranta, 2006;Chambers et al, 2007;. However, other studies have concentrated mainly on the signal of human impact (Warner et al, 1989;Chambers & Charman, 2004;Lamentowicz et al, 2007;Amesbury et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiproxy study of anthropogenic and climatic changes in the last two millennia from a small mire in central Poland

et al. 2009

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The _ Zabieniec kettle hole is the first peatland in central Poland analyzed quantitatively with four biotic proxies (plant macrofossils, pollen, testate amoebae and chironomids) to reconstruct the past environmental change. Palaeoecological data were supported by historical and archaeological records. We focused on autogenic vegetation change and human impact in relation to climatic effects. The aims of our study were (a) to describe the development history of the mire during the last 2,000 years, (b) to date and reconstruct the anthropogenic land-use changes and (c) to discuss a possible climatic signal in the peat archive. The combination of proxies revealed dramatic shifts that took place in the peatland since the Roman Period.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiproxy study of anthropogenic and climatic changes in the last two millennia from a small mire in central Poland

et al. 2009

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“…Recent studies have focused on palaeoenvironmental records across the southwest of Britain (Amesbury et al, 2008;Dark, 2006;Fyfe and Woodbridge, 2012;Gearey et al, 2000). The climatic and anthropogenic interpretation has, however, proved problematic (Amesbury et al, 2008;Brown, 2008;Gearey et al, 2000), due in part to the ambiguity over assigning pollen changes to reconstructing changing land cover and/or the relatively poor dating and resolution.…”

Section: Climate Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The climatic and anthropogenic interpretation has, however, proved problematic (Amesbury et al, 2008;Brown, 2008;Gearey et al, 2000), due in part to the ambiguity over assigning pollen changes to reconstructing changing land cover and/or the relatively poor dating and resolution. Although no annually-resolved Holocene climate records are available from southwest Britain, an alternative record is the northern Irish tree-ring chronologies using bog and lakeside growing oaks (Quercus spp.…”

Section: Climate Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has long been recognised that new excavations on upland areas in the southwest of Britain will allow the archaeological evidence for abandonment of upland areas to be robustly tested against climate datasets (Caseldine, 1999). However, there has been limited development of radiocarbon datasets from archaeological contexts, whilst climate records from peat sequences in southwest Britain (Amesbury et al, 2008) have precluded a robust test of abandonment. Here we explore the value of a more expansive radiocarbon dataset for testing the hypothesis of climate change driven abandonment of upland areas during the Bronze Age using Bayesian age modeling and an annually-resolved record of hydroclimate from northern Ireland that is representative of upland areas across the western British Isles.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Extreme wet conditions coincident with Bronze Age abandonment of upland areas in Britain

et al. 2016

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Abandonment of farming systems on upland areas in southwest Britain during the Late Bronze Age -some 3000 years ago -is widely considered a 'classic' demonstration of the impact of deteriorating climate on the vulnerability of populations in such marginal environments. Here we test the hypothesis that climate change drove the abandonment of upland areas by developing new chronologies for human activity on upland areas during the Bronze Age across southwest Britain (Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin Moor). We find Bronze Age activity in these areas spanned 3900 to 2950 calendar years ago with abandonment by 2900 calendar years ago. Holocene Irish bog and lake oak tree populations provide evidence of major shifts in hydroclimate across the British Isles, coincident with ice rafted debris layers recognized in North Atlantic marine sediments, indicating significant changes in the latitude and intensity of zonal atmospheric circulation across the region. We observe abandonment of upland areas in southwest Britain coinciding with a sustained period of extreme wet conditions that commenced 3100 calendar years ago. Our results are consistent with the view that climate change increased the vulnerability of these early farming communities and led to a less intensive use of such marginal environments across Britain.

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“…Establishing cause and effect requires detailed consideration of the nature of the evidence, the chronology of events and appreciation of complex human-environment relationships (e.g. Amesbury et al 2008).…”

Section: Erratummentioning

confidence: 99%

Early agriculture in uncertain climates: themes and approaches

Bogaard

Whitehouse²

2010

Environmental Archaeology

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Bronze Age upland settlement decline in southwest England: testing the climate change hypothesis

Cited by 45 publications

References 57 publications

Multiproxy study of anthropogenic and climatic changes in the last two millennia from a small mire in central Poland

Multiproxy study of anthropogenic and climatic changes in the last two millennia from a small mire in central Poland

Extreme wet conditions coincident with Bronze Age abandonment of upland areas in Britain

Early agriculture in uncertain climates: themes and approaches

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