Vegetation Modeling Using Pollen Data

Abstract

Pollen analysis is one of the most common methods for reconstructing the environmental context of archaeological sites, yet traditional interpretations of palynological data tend to focus on descriptive accounts of changes in past land‐cover rather than on hypothesis testing and assessment of uncertainty. This entry describes a range of approaches that can be employed to translate pollen assemblages into quantitative estimates and/or maps of former land‐cover. We discuss the advantages and limitations of whole‐assemblage techniques such as the modern analog technique, biomization and pseudobiomization, and of methods that employ algebraic models of the pollen–vegetation relationship to quantify past land‐cover, namely the landscape reconstruction algorithm and the multiple scenario approach. We also briefly discuss integrating these approaches with other forms of environmental proxy data, and the use of dynamic vegetation models to explore how vegetation communities may have responded to past environmental changes.