Humans in the Environment: Plants, Animals and Landscapes in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland

Abstract

Environmental archaeology has historically been central to Mesolithic studies in Britain and Ireland. Whilst processual archaeology was concerned with the economic significance of the environment, post-processual archaeology later rejected economically driven narratives, resulting in a turn away from plant and animal remains. Post-processual narratives focused instead on enigmatic 'ritual' items that economic accounts struggled to suitably explain. Processual accounts of landscapes, grounded in economic determinism, were also rejected in favour of explorations of their sociocultural aspects. However, in moving away from plant and animal remains, such accounts lacked the ability to rigorously explore the specificities of particular landscapes and humans actions within them. This paper will bridge this gap by considering how palaeoecological and zooarchaeological analyses can be used to explore human interactions with plants and animals, which were key in developing understandings and relationships that ultimately structured landscapes, influenced past human actions and shaped archaeological assemblages.

Life before Stonehenge: The hunter-gatherer occupation and environment of Blick Mead revealed by sedaDNA, pollen and spores

“…Three Ways Wharf, Uxbridge in the Thames Valley is dominated by red deer [ 43 ], Faraday Road, in the Kennet Valley is dominated by wild boar [ 44 ] and Thatcham, Berkshire in the Thames Valley shows joint dominance of red deer and wild boar (see S1 Fig for locations) [ 45 ]. The high numbers of aurochsen may itself be an indication of environment, though now extinct, aurochsen are thought to have grazed in lake/river-edge and had high daily water-requirement typical for cattle ( Bos ), damp grassland and similar wetland environments, which likely inhibited the expansion of woodland on these areas [ 46 , 47 ].…”

The Freston Causewayed Enclosure

“…At Freston it is hypothesized that the causewayed enclosure's spring-based location might attest to an appropriation of indigenous landscape uses and cosmologies (cf. Davis 2012;Jacques et al 2014;Tilley 1996.65), while hazelnut consumption and pitting can also be suggested as practices that have their heritage in local Mesolithic traditions (Milner 2009;Overton, Taylor 2018). In turn, the longhouse might relate to the phase of Earliest Neolithic colonisation, prior to the construction of the causewayed enclosure.…”

Beyond Entanglement

“…Countless archaeological studies form the classic fields of research into hunting, warfare, animal domestication and breeding (e.g. Childe ([1928Childe ([ ]1954Gamble 1985;Pluskowski 2007;Jordan 2004;Dobat et al 2015;Overton & Taylor 2018), and how animals are used as food resources (Fjellström 2020) or as sacrifices (Kaliff & Oestigaard 2020). Animals also make themselves known in settlements, infields, outfields and other uses of the landscape (Pedersen & Widgren 2011;Costello 2020).…”