Upland agriculture and environmental risk: a new model of upland land-use based on high spatial-resolution palynological data from West Affric, NW Scotland

A late Holocene pollen record from Lake Almalou in NW Iran: evidence for changing land-use in relation to some historical events during the last 3700 years

“…It is possible that periods of more developed fruticulture correspond with the establishment of big cities and/or agglomerated settlements in lowland plains. Upland land-use and abandonment is believed to be due to both climate change and human socio-economic changes (O'Rourke, 2006;Davies, 2007). Searching for a climatic cause of land-use dynamics in the Almalou area necessitates the access to high resolution palaeoecological records from the study area which are not available yet.…”

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

“…BP, notably of Pinus but also of Quercus, has been associated with climatic deterioration (Birks, 1975;Bennett, 1984;Gear and Huntley, 1991;Huntley et al, 1997). Pastoral farmers may have quickly taken advantage of open grassland and heath developing as woodlands decayed through climatic stress (Davies, 1999(Davies, , 2007Tipping and Tisdall, 2004 800 cal. years for farmers to consolidate the use of this increasingly open plateau.…”

“…Some well studied regions, such as the northern Cheviot Hills and west Glen Affric (Fig. 1), contained evidence for a restructuring of agricultural activities, but in total, the data suggested that prehistoric subsistence farmers coped well with climatic excursions Davies, 2007) through adaptive strategies and choices that are not well understood (Tipping, 2005). Dark (2006) has reached similar conclusions from a comparable data set for Britain as a whole.…”

Long-term approaches to native woodland restoration: Palaeoecological and stakeholder perspectives on Atlantic forests of Northern Europe

“…Agricultural expansion and intensification were the main cause of woodland contraction over the last c. 500 years, exacerbating trends seen over the last c. 700-1000 years at Lochan na h-Inghinn and by Loch Assynt (Birks, 1980;Froyd, 2001). This reflects competition for discrete areas of better soil within the peatdominated matrix and the changing value placed on trees relative to grazing resources (Davies, 2007;Davies and Watson, 2007). Longterm data thus suggest that there is scope for 'reparation' of historic anthropogenic woodland removal in this area, but only on a modest, localised scale.…”