Early land use and vegetation history at Derryinver Hill, Renvyle Peninsula, Co. Galway, Ireland

Molloy, Karen; O’Connell, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-94-010-9176-3_16

Cited by 9 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…The abandonment of active farming may have resulted in conditions suitable for peat initiation (cf. Molloy & O’Connell 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fresh insights into long‐term changes in flora, vegetation, land use and soil erosion in the karstic environment of the Burren, western Ireland

Feeser¹,

O’Connell

2009

Journal of Ecology

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Summary 1. The study focuses on species‐rich, upland, heathy vegetation with arctic‐alpine floristic affinities and Sesleria grasslands in the karstic Burren region, western Ireland. The investigations aimed at reconstructing the long‐term development of these high conservation‐value communities and the role of farming in their formation and long‐term survival. 2. The methods used included pollen analysis and 14C‐dating of short monoliths and investigation of grykes (fissures in karstic limestone) for evidence of soil erosion. Special attention was paid to fossil, coprophilous fungal spores as indicators of local grazing. The strong local character of the pollen records facilitated identification of inter‐site differences as well as regional patterns. It is shown that open pine woodland characterized the Cappanawalla uplands between c. 1500 BC and 500 BC. It is proposed that such woodlands, with floristic affinities to Scandinavian open pine woodlands on calcareous soils, provided a suitable environment for the present‐day, open heath vegetation with species such as Dryas octopetala, Arctostaphylos uva‐ursi, Geranium sanguineum and Empetrum nigrum. 3. Burning of vegetation as a management tool was important in the uplands over most of the last two millennia. Firing seems to have ceased with the onset of more intensive grazing regimes in the 18th century. 4. Synthesis. Upland palaeoarchives, derived from shallow peaty deposits, show that the upland Burren supported mainly plagioclimax Corylus‐dominated woody vegetation and grasslands from c. 1500 BC (beginning of present record), until possibly as late as the 17th century AD. In the uplands of the north‐western Burren, open, species‐rich pinewoods with hazel dominated. The northern‐arctic elements in the present‐day upland flora survived clearances, involving initially Pinus sylvestris (c. 500 BC) and subsequently Corylus avellana (c. AD 1600). Colluvial material retrieved from grykes supports the idea of considerable soil loss occurring as late as the first and early 2nd millennium AD. The investigations highlight the potential of upland palaeoarchives, consisting of short sequences, for elucidating vegetation and land‐use dynamics in karstic environments such as the Burren.

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“…The abandonment of active farming may have resulted in conditions suitable for peat initiation (cf. Molloy & O’Connell 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fresh insights into long‐term changes in flora, vegetation, land use and soil erosion in the karstic environment of the Burren, western Ireland

Feeser¹,

O’Connell

2009

Journal of Ecology

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“…; 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. O'Sullivan and Downey 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Overland

O’Connell

2008

Journal of the North Atlantic

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“…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. If the accelerated expansion of blanket bog, indicated by alluvial sediments, macrofossils, and pollen, coincides with a climatic deterioration (Kelly, 2002) at 1200 B.C., which would have caused increased erosion of drumlins and highlands, then the isolated standing stones predating climate change must at least be older than 1200 B.C.…”

Section: Evidence For Environmental Change In the Murrisk Peninsulamentioning

confidence: 85%

“…(O'Connell, 1990a), and, in Connemara to the south, peat initiation was locally retarded until 1700 yr B.P. through land-use management (Molloy and O'Connell, 1993). In general, however, pollen analysis shows that there was a massive expansion of blanket peat shortly after 2000 B.C.…”

Section: Evidence For Environmental Change In the Murrisk Peninsulamentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Moore

2006

Geoarchaeology

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The Murrisk Peninsula in southwest County Mayo is a major target for gold exploration in Ireland. The most productive areas include the Cregganbaun Shear Zone and Cregganbaun Quartzite Belt on Croagh Patrick, both geologically related to Iapetus closure, and gold is concentrated in alluvial deposits of river systems draining these areas. A comparison of gold occurrences with the location of prehistoric stone monuments reveals that simple standing-stone monuments, though isolated from other monument types, correlate with alluvial gold. South of the Murrisk Peninsula in Connemara, isolated standing stones are associated with a wide range of mineral resources and with other monuments. Dating of the stones relative to blanket-bog expansion and coastal landform changes indicates that standing stones were raised as markers of gold placer deposits before a climatic deterioration at 1200 B.C. Late Bronze Age monuments with a ceremonial purpose are more complex and include stone alignments.

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Early land use and vegetation history at Derryinver Hill, Renvyle Peninsula, Co. Galway, Ireland

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Fresh insights into long‐term changes in flora, vegetation, land use and soil erosion in the karstic environment of the Burren, western Ireland

Fresh insights into long‐term changes in flora, vegetation, land use and soil erosion in the karstic environment of the Burren, western Ireland

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

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

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