Ecosystems change at the Neolithic transition

Welinder, Stig

doi:10.1080/00293652.1983.9965391

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Simmons (1979) mentions that over 100 pre-elm decline clearances are known in Britain, and there are cases of pre-Neolithic disturbances also in Ireland (Smith 1981;Hirons 1983), southern Scandinavia (e.g. Goransson 1988;Welinder 1983a;1983b;, the North European Plain (Bogucki 1988), Poland (Tobolski 1986, 2), and Finland (e.g. Huttunen 1980;Vuorela 1986).…”

Section: Palynological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Huttunen 1980;Vuorela 1986). Many of these disturbance phases are associated with evidence of burning (Mellars 1976;Jacobi et al 1976;Scaife 1982;Simmons &Innes 198551987;Simmons et al 1981;Welinder 1983a;1983b;Huttunen et al 1980;Goransson 1988), and with extended episodes of clearance activity delaying forest regeneration (Simmons Buckland & Edwards 1984;Simmons et al 1981;Edwards 1989b;Goransson 1988). In some areas,.…”

Section: Palynological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Plant Use in the Mesolithic and its Role in the Transition to Farming

Zvelebil

1994

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

167

101

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The purpose of this paper is to review the current evidence for plant use in Mesolithic Europe and to summarize its implications. In order to do so, four sources of data are examined: macrobotanical remains, palynological data, artefactual evidence, and the human biological record.A prelimary survey of palaeobotanical evidence for plant use in the Mesolithic indicates that the evidence is far more extensive than expected hitherto and that accumulations of plant food, especially of nuts, point to their regular and extensive use. In those areas such as Britain, where a large number of fine-resolution palynological studies have been carried out, the incidence of clearance and burning phases seems to be too high to be explained by acts of nature alone. A good case can be made for deliberate forest clearance and the maintenance of a more open landscape by Late Mesolithic groups as part of a promotional strategy to increase the productivity of nut and fruit trees and shrubs, wetland plants, and possibly native grasses.Artefactual evidence points to a widespread distribution of soil-working tools (hoes and antler mattocks), especially in temperate Europe, and to a greater than expected presence of reaping and grinding equipment, lending conditional support for the existence of a specialized plant processing tool kit for digging, reaping, and plant processing.Palaeopathological evidence indicates the existence of a dietary pattern in the west Mediterranean making extensive use of starchy and carbohydrate foods which resulted in a high caries rate among the Mesolithic population of that area.In discussing the signiftcanse of these four lines of evidence, it is argued that, by the Late Mesolithic, the patterns of plant use support the notion of wild plant food husbandry instead of the incidental and opportunistic use of plants for food which has implicitly been accepted as a norm for the Mesolithic in Europe. Three geographical areas can be identified with their specific pattern of plant use: temperate Europe, Mediterranean Europe, and the south-eastern Balkans/Pontic Steppe. The patterns of plant use suggested in this paper emphasize the additive nature of the adoption of the agro-pastoral Neolithic farming practices in Europe.

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Section: Palynological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Palynological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Plant Use in the Mesolithic and its Role in the Transition to Farming

Zvelebil

1994

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

167

101

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“…‘Terminal Mesolithic’ rod microlith sites in northern England, for example, date right up to the end the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition period and so overlap with Neolithic archaeological sites in the region (Albert et al, 2021; Albert and Innes, 2015; Griffiths, 2014; Spikins, 2002). The respective impacts of the late Mesolithic and the earliest Neolithic on the landscape might have been of a similar scale and difficult to distinguish, but a means of detecting the initial Neolithic might be through changes in human ecology and vegetation disturbance which, although probably subtle and spatially restricted, altered ecosystems (Welinder, 1983) and vegetation patterns (Caseldine and Fyfe, 2006; Woodbridge et al, 2014). Although methodological problems remain, palynological data (Edwards, 1988; Innes and Blackford, 2009, 2017) can potentially provide evidence for the start and nature of these vegetational and palaeoecological changes and it might be possible to interpret early Neolithic pollen data not only in terms of vegetation change at the site scale, but to extend that understanding to the landscape scale and so spatially link the pollen and archaeological records (Farrell et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the presence of cereal-type pollen grains in coastal pre-Elm Decline peat deposits: Fine-resolution palynology at Roudsea Wood, Cumbria, UK

Innes,

Rutherford,

Ryan

et al. 2024

The Holocene

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By the time of the Mid-Holocene Ulmus pollen decline (UD) ca. 5100 14C bp (ca. 5900 cal. BP), the Neolithic was becoming well established in Britain and Ireland. The importance of cereal cultivation as part of the initial neolithization process in the British Isles is uncertain, as archaeological sites of the first Neolithic remain elusive. Palaeoecologists have recorded cereal-type pollen grains in peat deposits that pre-date the UD significantly, but as some wild grasses can produce pollen that closely resembles cereal pollen grains, these early pollen records are not trusted as evidence of cereal cultivation. Some of these wild grass taxa grow in coastal wetland environments, making cereal-type pollen from such locations particularly open to question. This study uses fine-resolution palynology through a sequence of coastal hydroseral deposits that contain no evidence of human activity, to look for the presence of wild grass pollen of cereal size and morphology. Our results show that while such grains are not recorded at 1 cm resolution, at contiguous 2 mm resolution sampling sporadic occurrences of large grass pollen of possible cereal-type, resembling Hordeum, were detected. Morphology suggests that these cereal-type grains are of wild grass origin, almost certainly Glyceria, but their presence suggests that high-resolution analyses of coastal zone sediments will often discover cereal-type grains. Great care must be taken in identifying cereal-type pollen in coastal palaeo-wetland sediments, and rigorous identification protocols should be applied. Where grains could still be of cultivated cereal-type, the presence of other disturbance indicators is an important factor in inferring their origin.

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“…'Initial Neolithic' presence may be recognizable only through changes in human ecology, in land use and relations with the landscape, small-scale and subtle. As the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition progressed, however, it brought about major transformations of landscapes, ecosystems and land-use niches (Welinder 1983;Finlayson and Warren 2010;Rowley-Conwy and Layton 2011). One way of investigating the transition, therefore, should be through the interpretation of palaeoenvironmental evidence (Edwards 1988(Edwards , 1989aInnes et al 2003a;Innes and Blackford 2009), as palaeoecology records human relations with the biophysical environment.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Palynology and the study of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the British Isles

Innés¹,

Blackford²

The Archaeological and Forensic Applications of Microfossils: A Deeper Understanding of Human History

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The transition from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic agriculturalists was one of the most important turning points in human history. The economic base, material culture, population levels, settlement patterns and world-views were transformed, along with significant changes in the ways in which people interacted with the landscape, including impacts upon the vegetation cover. The rate and process by which Mesolithic economies and societies were replaced by Neolithic ones in Britain's mid-Holocene forested landscape is difficult to discover by archaeological methods, unless it involved the rapid immigration of high numbers of fully-Neolithic farmers. Before the transformation was completed and Neolithic societies were established everywhere, there could well have been an extended period of time during which early settlers introduced domesticated animals and other elements of Neolithic-style economy and land use. Mesolithic groups could well have co-existed with these pioneer agro-pastoralists and continued with their foraging strategies as the transition progressed, until finally supplanted. Such early agriculturalists might be hardly visible in the archaeological record, but as vegetation is a sensitive indicator of environmental change, the introduction of new land-use techniques and their impacts should be discernable in the pollen and spore record. In this paper we examine the ways in which palynology has been used in Britain to investigate the transition from forager to farmer, illustrated by examples from three sites in NorthEast Yorkshire. Palynological methodologies and problems are evaluated. Evidence suggests that late Mesolithic people were using fire to manipulate woodland and improve its food resources. The cultivation of cereals might have been an early agricultural introduction. There was a phase of forest farming in the later transition in which the woodland was managed and utilized rather than opened significantly. Woodland clearance and more intensive farming occur after the transition was completed.

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Ecosystems change at the Neolithic transition

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Plant Use in the Mesolithic and its Role in the Transition to Farming

Plant Use in the Mesolithic and its Role in the Transition to Farming

Testing the presence of cereal-type pollen grains in coastal pre-Elm Decline peat deposits: Fine-resolution palynology at Roudsea Wood, Cumbria, UK

Palynology and the study of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the British Isles

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