Archaeological Aspects of Woodland Ecology 9780860541769, 9781407329185

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Papers Presenting to Professor G.W. Dimbleby to Mark His 65th Birthday
Introduction
One: Man, Space, and the Woodland Edge - Speculations on the Detection and Interpretation of Human Impact in Pollen Profiles
Two: Past and Present Lime Woods of Europe
Three: Late-Devensian and Early Flandrian Vegetation Changes in Southern England
Four: Man's Impact on The Chalklands: Some New Pollen Evidence
Five: Human Impact on the Former Floodplain Woodlands of The Severn
Six: Evidence for The Burren's Forest Cover
Seven: Environmental Archaeology and Karstic Terrains: The Example of The Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland
Eight: Fossil Insect Faunas from Forest Sites
Nine: Neolithic Enclosures and Woodland Habitats on The South Downs in Sussex, England
Ten: The Avon Gorge and Leigh Woods
Eleven: Land-Use and the Native Vegetation of Greece
Twelve: Forest Grazing and Clearance in Temperate Europe with Special Reference to Denmark: An Archaeological View
Thirteen: Acorns for the Ancestors: The Prehistoric Exploitation of Woodland in the West Mediterranean
Fourteen: Forest Re-Advance and the Anatolian Neolithic
Fifteen: Bronze Age Exploitation in the Western Italian Alps
Sixteen: Current Tree-Ring Research in the Somerset Levels
Seventeen: The Honeybee and Woodland Resources
Eighteen: Woodland Mammals in Wessex - The Archaeological Evidence
Nineteen: Porridge and Pannage: Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England
Twenty: The Size of Red Deer in Britain - Past and Present, with Some Reference to Fallow Deer

Citation preview

BAR  S146  1982   BELL & LIMBREY (Eds)  

Archaeological Aspects of Woodland Ecology Edited by

Martin Bell and Susan Limbrey

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF WOODLAND ECOLOGY

Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology No. 2

BAR International Series 146 9 780860 541769

B A R

1982

w

olo ical sp col y edited by

Martin Bell

Susan Limbrey

Symposia of the Association for Environrr1ental Archaeology No. 2 International

I 8

I

Published in 2017 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 146 Archaeological Aspects of Woodland Ecology © The authors individually and the Publisher 1982 The author's moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9780860541769 paperback ISBN 9781407329185 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860541769 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 1982. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2017.

BAR PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from: BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK E MAIL [email protected] P HONE +44 (0)1865 310431 F AX +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

CONTENTS Page Dedication to Professor G.W. Dimbleby Introduction Acknowledgements

4

Man, space and the woodland edge:speculations on the detection and interpretation of human impact in pollen profiles Kevin J, Edwards

5

1 3

Past and present lime woods of Europe James Greig

23

Late-Devensian and early Flandrian vegetation changes in Southern England R. G. Scaife

57

Man's impact on the chalklands: some new pollen evidence Paul V. Waton

75

Human impact on the former floodplain woodlands of the Severn A.G. Brown

93

Evidence for the Burren 1 s forest cover Keith Crabtree

105

Environmental archaeology and karstic terrains: the example of the Burren, Co.Clare, Ireland D.P. Drew

115

Fossil insect faunas from forest sites Maureen A. Girling

129

Neolithic enclosures and woodland habitats on the South Downs in Sussex, England K.D. Thomas

147

The Avon Gorge and Leigh Woods Oliver Rackham

171

Land-use and the native vegetation of Greece Oliver Rackham

177

Forest gr.azing and clearance in temperate Europe with special reference to Denmark an archaeological view Peter Rowley-Com.;ry

199

Acorns for the ancestor~: the ~rehistonic exploitation of woodlands in the West Mediterranean J,G. Lewthwaite

Page 217

Forest re-advance and the Anatolian Neolithic Neil Roberts

231

Bronze Age woodland exploitation in the Western Italian Alps Renato Nisbet

247

Current tree-ring research in the Somerset Levels Ruth A. Morgan

261

The honeybee and woodland resources Susan Limbrey

279

Woodland mammals in Wessex - the archaeological evidence Jennie Coy

287

Porridge and pannage: pig husbandry in Neolithic England Caroline Grigson

297

The size of red deer in Britain - past and present, with some reference to fallow deer Barbara Noddle

315

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Martin Bell, Department of Geography, University of Bristol, University Road ' Bristol, BS8 lSS. '

Tony Brown, Department of Geography, The University, Southampton, S09 5NH, Jennie Coy, Department of Archaeology, The University, Southampton, S09 5NH. Keith Crabtree, Department of Geography, University of Br Bristol, BS8 1SS.

tol, University Road,

David Drew, Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. Kevin Edwards, Department of Geography, The University of Birmingham, P.O. Box 363, Birmingham, Bl5 2TT. Maureen Girling, Department of the Environment, Room 532, Fortress House, 23 Savile Row, London, WlX 2HE. James Gre:bg, Department of Plant Biology, The University of Birmingham, P.O. Box 363, Birmingham, Bl5 2TT. Caroline Grigson, Odontological Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A JPN. James Lewthwaite, 55 Grove Road, Coombe Dingle, Bristol, BS9 2RS, Susan Limbrey, Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, The University of Birmingham, P.O. Box 363, Birmingham, Bl5 2TT. Ruth Morgan, Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN. Renato Nisbet, 23c Lombardini, 10066 Torre Pellice, (Torino), Italy. Barbara Nodd le, Department of Anatomy, University College, Cardiff, P.O. Box 78, Cardiff, CFl lXL. Oliver Rackham, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Neil Roberts, Department of Geography, University of Technology, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LEll 3TU, Peter Rowley-Conwy, Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London, 26 Russell Square, London, WClB SDQ. Rob. Scaife, Institute of Archaeology, 31-4 Gordon Square, London, WClH OPY. Ken Thomas, Institute of Archaeology, 31-4 Gordon Square, London, WClH OPY. Paul Waton, Department of Geography, The University, Southampton, S09 SNR.

PAPERS PRESENTED TO PROFESSOR G.W. DIMBLEBY TO MARK HIS 65th BIRTHDAY As members of the Association for Environmental Archaeology and contributors to this volume we are conscious of the debt we owe to Geoffrey Dimbleby. Some of us have had the good fortune to be taught by him and we have all benefited through the influence of his writing and research, through his efforts to stimulate awareness of environmental. matters among archaeologists, and through his energy in promoting the growth of environmental archaeology by committee work and lobbying activities. All this evolved naturally from his early work on woodlands and forestry and it is appropriate that we should offer to him this volume with thanks and good wishes for the future.

1

INTRODUCTION

Most of the papers in this volume were presented at a symposium held at Burwalls Hall, Bristol on 4-6th September 1981, It was the third symposium to be organized by the Association for Environmental Archaeology, Symposia No,1, which concerned Environmental Aspects of Coasts and Lands, is published as B,A.R. International Series 94 (1981). The second symposium has not yet appeared in print so this volume is Symposia No.2, An important part of current archaeological interest concerns the relationship between the archaeological landscape and the physical and biological landscape. In most parts of the inhabited world woodland is, or has been, a significant part of these landscapes. It is not easy for archaeologists to assess the role of the woodland ecosystem in the life of the people they are studying. The system itself, in all its variety, is understood only in part, and today the relationship of the human component to the whole is, in the temperate world and to a large extent elsewhere, different in kind and intensity to that which prevailed in the past. Palaeoecological studies, which themselves provide only occasional glimpses of certain aspects of the system in the past, therefore suffer from an inadequacy of modern analogues,

This does not mean that archaeologists cannot, or should not, attempt an assessment of settlement and economy in relation to the distribution, type and resource potential of woodland. That they tend to be more confident in utilization of the published resource base than are the palaeoecologists who contribute to it may be no bad thing, provided that archaeologists remain aware of mobility in the interpretative background in.the contributory lds and provided also that palaeoecology can avoid feeding back into s interpretations the archaeological syntheses derived from an earlier state of its own art, Clearly the more closely people in the various fields involved work together the easier it is to avoid these hazards, Our aim in planning this symposium was-to promote discussion among the various fields of environmental archaeology and in publishing the proceedings we hope to extend the debate to the wider archaeological world. A word should be said about the way the papers have been selected and arranged, The first part of the volume concerns evidence which enables us to establish the existence, or reconstruct the nature, of early woodland. Inevitably many of these papers concern pollen analys and they are introduced by two papers which consider interpretative and spatial aspects, The remainder ..·of the palynological papers are largely concerned with areas where few analyses were previously available, e.g. the chalklands, the Isle of Wight, the South West Midlands and the Burren. Other sources of evidence which are considered include insects, molluscs, soils and sediments, 1

Equal to the dramatic impact of the proliferation of pollen and faunal studies on our thinking about early woodland have been recent historically orientated studies of present-day woodland ecology, The

3

conference took place very much against the background of Oliver Rackharn's recently published Ancient Woodland (1980) which has shown how the species composition and structure of surviving woodland can be used as a guide to its history and mode of utilization. In this way it has been possible to show that many areas of surviving woodland have very ancient origins, Dr, Rackharn's two contributions to the volume illustrate this approach: one concerns Leigh Woods, which adjoin Burwalls Hall and which the conference visited on an informal excursion; the other concerns the historical ecology of Greece and the Greek Islands. It is now clear that ancient woodland has survived on a scale scarcely considered by earlier generations of archaeologists and environmental scientists, not so much as a relic of former wilderness but as a valuable and carefully husbanded resource, Archaeologically orientated studies have perhaps tended to underestimate the importance of woodland as a resource, partly because so much palaeoenvironmental work has been focused on the effects of woodland clearance. We have tried to redress the balance a little by including a number of syntheses from botanical and archaeological evidence which illustrate how man utilized and manipulated woodland. These studies consider aspects such as the food potential of Mesolithic woodland, timber itself, acorns and other woodland products. The final group of papers represent syntheses from faunal and archaeological evidence, and within these papers are two particular strands of .thought. The first again concerns the utilization of woodland, the second concerns the extent to which we may use mammals as evidence of woodland, In addition to the papers published here, the symposium heard two which it has not been possible to include. Karen Eide spoke about pollen and soil studies in the New Forest, but was prevented by pressure of work from contributing to the volume. Judith Turner spoke on the tree species composition of Mesolithic-aged woodland on the Northern Pennines but felt unable to contribute to the present volume because part of this research was already in print (J, Turner and J. Hodgson 1979, and 1981, Journal of Ecology volumes 67 and 69) and part is soon to be published elsewhere (Journal of Ecology in press).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Burwalls Hall was a most congenial centre for our symposium and we are grateful to the staff for their care and attention. Organization was done under the umbrella of the Department of Geography, Bristol University through the good offices of Professor Ian Simmons. Help at the conference itse}f was provided by D.J. Maguire. A number of colleagues, including some of the contributors, gave us help in assembling the list of speakers from such a wide range of disciplines and in advising us on editorial matters. We are also pleased to acknowledge the considerable help of Jennifer Foster at all stages in the preparation of this volume. The text was typed by Mrs. Alma Foster and other kind helperi for whose careful work we are most grateful.

Martin Bell and Susan Limbrey

4

l

MAN, SPACE AND THE WOODLAND EDGE SPECULATIONS ON THE DETECTION AND INTERPRETATION OF HUMAN IMPACT IN POLLEN PROFILES Kevin J. Edwards· INTRODUCTION Many currently used texts on prehistory give due prominence to the environmental background of early settlement study (e.g. Renfrew 1974; Bradley 1978; Megaw and Simpson 1979) and this is in addition to those contributions which focus specifically upon man and environment (e.g. Evans 1975; Evans et al. 1975; Mellars 1978; Simmons and Tooley 1981). Pre-eminent in the man-land relationship has surely been the role attributed to woodland. This results especially from the fact that the greatest research effort in the environmental field has been mounted by pollen-analysts whose data on woodland and other plant taxa are widely available and extremely versatile. Combine this with the fact that archaeologists can see ways of integrating their artifact- and monument-derived information with palynologically-based data (e.g. Bradley 1972; Jacobi 1978; Whittle 1978) and the continuing demand for pollen records can be seen as a perfectly understandable phenomenon. In attempting to explain early patterns of settlement the archaeologist may employ palynological research findings to throw light on positive economic land-use factors such as whether the woodland taxa in his study area could support numbers of people and animals, or, more negatively, to investigate whether the woodland formed a possible barrier to ease of cultivation or communications. This is quite apart from even more indirect inferences which may be gleaned concerning soils, climate or dating. For his part, the palynologist has, since the days of the method (Iversen 1941; Faegri 1944; Godwin 1944), seized upon the existence of prehistoric communities to help explain the changing palaeofloras evident from his pollen diagrams. From the very first paper on the pollen method (von Post 1916) various workers have commented on the concept of space (Fagerlind 1952; Oldfield 1970; Jacobson and Bradshaw 1981) insofar as it . influences the source and amount of pollen received at a sampling site, Man also operates in space, though apart from Judith Turner's work on 'three-dimensional' pollen diagrams ('I1urner 1970, 1975; see also Coles et al. 1973) there have been few examples of an explicit acknowledgement of the importance of space in anthropogenicallyorienta:ted palynology, References to clearance phases being 'largescale', 'small-scale', 'nearby', 'distant' may be found with insufficient qualification in the literature. While this partly reflects the inherent limitations of the pollen method, it also, I think,

5

reflects a failure on the part of the palynologist and the archaeologist to consider the spatial implications of the pollen record, This paper does not attempt to discuss the problem of inference, For the uninitiated (who are directed to Birks and Birks 1980; Moore and Webb 1978; and Edwards 1979), it may simply be said that the various stages of palaeoecological inference represent levels of increasing abstraction and perhaps decreasing credibility, We have confidence in the method especially because of its apparent qualities of replication and the ecologically convincing picture presented by the pollen record, The purpose of paper is, rather, to focus on some of the spatial aspects of early man, pollen and woodland (assoc temporal problems are discussed in Edwards 1979 and Moore 1980), The tenor · reflective rather than aiming to be definitive, and irt scope it is not intended as a comprehensive survey, Some may consider the treatment of material to be simplistic - it is! But arises out of a perceived need for those interested in the palynological evidence for man to constantly reconsider the basic inferential building-bricks of the method in an effort to achieve more incisive interpretations, THE WOODLAND EDGE The contact zone between woodland and open areas might be termed the woodland edge, This area is not likely to have been a welldefined line for much of prehistoric time such factors as natural vegetation colonization and changes promoted by man and animals are likely to have aided the blurring of any edge zone (Limbrey 1975, pp112-126). The sharpest 'edge' is likely to have been found close to such natural boundaries as rivers and coasts, around lakes and bogs, and in the Neolithic a· .d later periods, around clearings made for . settlement and agricultural purposes. It is 1mcertain whether altitude resulted in a sharp upper in Britain at least (Dimbleby 1975). I do not think it is indulging in special pleading to claim that the woodland edge was probably an important phenomenon in the prehistoric economies of temperate areas. Simmons et al . ( 1981) suggest that woodland manipulation would have been strongest at the periphery of the forest where ecosystems were most fragile and susceptible to intentional change. Such ecotonal areas would benefit both man and animals in providing a maximization of resources between the products of the forest and those of the unwooded or sparsely wooded areas, It might also be expected that the open areas would be preferred for settlement and domestic activities, From this it would follow that palynological determination of the woodland edge were possible then it may also be possible to show or even predict areas of early occupation, If the importance of the woodland edge questioned, it should be said at the outset that, whether we like or not, it can exert a major influence on the pollen 'record and its effects will condition the palynological view of man and vegetation.

6

POLLEN TRANSPORT AND PEAT BOG SITES The work of Henrik Tauber (1965, 1967) on the dispersal of pollen well-known to palynologists (see also Janssen 1966 and discussion in Jacobson and Bradshaw 1981) and has been extensively used by Judith Turner ( 1970, 1975) in the interpretation of her three-dimensional pollen diagrams. Essentially., Tauber's model proposes that for a small pollen receiving , 100 - 200 m. in diameter and close to woodland, the ratio of pollen deriving from the trunk space, canopy and general rain-out components 8:1 :1. For a very large lake or bog with a diameter of 'some I kilometres the ratio changes to 1 : T: 2 with the local trunk-space element becoming least important (a development of this is presented in Fig. 1). It is local trunk space component which I shall concentrate on for the moment, and in particular upon a frequent spatial manifestation., the exponential decline of pollen frequencies away from the pollen source. Studies of modern pollen deposition along transects have brought out the marked distance-decay nature of pollen dispersal from a distinctive woodland source. As can be seen in Fig. 2, Tinsley and Smith ( 19Tl+) demonstrated that oak pollen frequenc (as a percentage of total is

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land pollen) decreased from over 40% at the oak woodland edge and levelled off at around 15% within about 30 m. (though Tinsley and Smith more conservatively choose 100 m, as a levelling-off point). More recently, Caseldine (1981), working at Bankhead Moss, Fife (Fig. 3), demonstrated that maximum values for birch pollen (around 70% of his total land pollen sum) were found at, or within, 10 m, of the outer birch woodland edge on all three transects with a rapid fall off to 10 - 20% levels within about 20 m. (Caseldine chooses a figure of 30 m. - but the important thing to note is the short distances involved). The implication from both pieces of work is that unless the sampling site is very close indeed to the woodland edge then very local impact is unlikely to be detected, A further complication, however, can be found when those portions of the Bankhead Moss transects are' extended to the centre of the bog, The centre is small (150 x 80 m, in extent) and surrounded by birch ( with some pine plantation woodland on the southern edge). The values for Betula within the bog centre drop to a quite consistent 25% from over 60% within about 25 m. of the woodland edge along two major transects, A and C. The heart of the bog is therefore heavily influenced by birch which Caseldine interprets as being mainly derived from trunk space movement, and this would be even more apparent if the local frequencies for ericaceous taxa are excluded from the pollen sum. The implication for such a small site (quite likely to be chosen for anthropogenic investigations since it might well be considered likely to register the local impact of prehistoric communities) is that small clearances,close to, but separated from the bog by a woodland s.creen, might not be detected at a bog centre A third example of the distance decay of pollen frequencies which yielded slightly di.fferent results from the above is that of Turner ( 1964). An examination of the decline in Pinus pollen frequencies away from the of a pine plantation on Camerson's Moss, Ayrshire, revealed a more gradual decay pattern, where values similar to the 'regional' Pinus component were found at around 400 m.

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9

from the woodland edge (Fig. 4). It has been suggested that this discrepancy in pattern may be due to the more effective dispersal of winged Pin us pollen grains ( Tinsley and Smith 1974, p563; see also Turner 1964, p590) or perhaps the use of a tree pollen sum rather than one based on total land pollen (Caseldine 1981, p14). Any consideration of anthropogenic impact on nearby woodland would obviously (and often with difficulty) have to take account of the species composition of that woodland. Before extending the implications of the work discussed above, another aspect of. Caseldine I s empirical study .is worthy of mention (Caseldine 1981 ). He measured the diameter of all the grass pollen grains counted from Bankhead Moss and found that those in the centre of the bog had a significantly smaller diameter than those near the edge, those within the woodland and those beyond it. The pollen sources for the graminaceous species are predominantly outside of the woodland. This suggests either filtration of larger grass grains by the birch woodland or, if the grass pollen is present above the bog or canopy, it may not be settling out preferentially in the pollen rain and is perhaps affected by wind turbulence at the woodland edge/ bog centre interface, This effect on Gramineae grains has at least two implications for anthropogenic interpretations. First the possible filtration of grass pollen may reduce the representation of this plant family and make the high resolution detection of prehistoric impact more difficult to determine. Second, the preferential selection of smaller grains may successfully prevent the discovery of large diameter cereal grains, exacerbating the situation caused by the low productivity of three of the cereals of most interest to us barley, wheat and oats. It should be remembered that apart from these effects, the cereal grains - and any other cultural indicators will also be subject to the normal distance-decay phenomenon. Federova (1965, reported in Potter and Rowley 1960) has noted that at the edge of a rye plot 1360 pollen grains per cm 2 were found, whereas at 300 m. from th~ plot the value drops to 3 grains per cm 2 - and rye is a relatively high cereal pollen disseminator, being a wind rather than a self-pollinated species (Ralska-Jascewiczowa 1968, p180), From a spatial and anthropogenic viewpoint there are further implications regarding the location of sites for the investigation of vegetation change. The detailed work on three-dimensional pollen diagrams by Judi th Turner ( 196 5, 1970, 1975) represents a landmark in anthropogenic studies,representing both insight and industry. If, however, the distance-decay phenomena noted above are applied to such work, then they may force a reconsideration in interpretation. Most importantly, if true woodland edge effects are to be detected then profiles must be sited within the sphere of trunk space influence, i.e. perhaps within as little as 30 m. of the woodland edge. This may mean that all of Turner's Bloak and Kennox Moss profiles (the nearest, Site A, is almost 100 m. from the bog edge) may have yielded an essentially regional pollen picture. A regional pollen component

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The Pinus pollen frequency west of the Cameron's Moss plantation expressed as a percentage of the total tree pollen, together with the estimated curve and the 80% confidence limits on either (after Turner 1964)

11

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common to all these Ayrshire profiles, could explain the similarities between their records. This situation especially be found the later prehi period (e,g, Bronze and Iron Ages) when clearances were· perhaps larger and mor·e numerous, and when the woodland edge may have receded from the bog vicinity, to a diminution of trunk space influence. Twin requirements for increasing confidence anthropogenic inferences would be profiles no further than 30 m. from a woodland edge (where deposits may unfortunately be too thin to allow high resolution) with others extending to beyond 300 m. (Tauber 1965) and comprehensive radiocarbon dating of profiles. The former requirement would go some way to truly testing the spatial element while the latter would not provide a timescale for events but also result in which to test a hypothesis. This be framed thus: given early man would not neces settle near a bog, espec if it indicates an even wider area of poor drainage, and that such areas are likely to remain tree-fringed with attendant ~~.~~- .. filtration effects which would delay any local registration of vegetation disturbance, then would follow that a bog centre diagram with its wider pollen catchment area would provide the st indicatof clearance. Given also the greater distance of the central profile from any area of disturbance, then the recorded might wrongly be interpreted as having been of small-scale, and here we enter the whole complex issue of of disturbed area or areas and distance from the pollen sampling sites - an issue which has been taken up elsewhere (Edwards 1979). If. this woodland argument is extended, might further be postulated that very areas indeed may have been cleared from the landscape, but a close to a woodland-girded bog edge might not record the fact. This is because local woodland pollen abundance, filtration and statistical sampling effects all combine to reduce signs of impact, though the counting of very large numbers of grains might produce some of cultural activity, The interpretation of extremely minor pollen changes would, however, prove extremely difficult other than terms of taxa presence or absence. The above observations would apply particularly to peat deposit sites, especially sed bogs, a temperate environment. pollen profiles close to woodland, and ground-water fed lakes might be expected to show many of same features blanket bogs of any extent create a different problem since they are likely to occur in unwooded areas where distance arboreal pollen transport effects, but.on a different scale to those found in tundra areas (Birks 1973; Nichols et ai . 1978), might be found. Lake sediments provide a different of site which might be particularly to studies of early man. LAKE SITES Unlik~ bog , there is perhaps a greater chance that communities would use the permanent water source provided by many lakes, This should not necessarily be over-estimated, however, since lake sites are just as likely to be in difficult marshy areas as bogs, and streams are common in many drier environments away from

12

both bogs and lakes. It would be interesting to see if our earliest radiocarbon dates for interference come from lake rather than bog sites. Even here, though, the nature of lake sediments can promote falselyold dates (Edwards and Rowntree 1980) but this is likely to be less of a problem before the inception of large-scale deforestation, agriculture and resulting erosion. The above may be illustrated with reference to a hypothetical and the application of some empirical findings. Imagine a small lake with two input streams, one stream output and no people within the pollen catchment area ( . 5), The area is almost totally wooded with a poor understorey flora and non-arboreal taxa along stream courses and around the lake edge. Cores from the and centre of this particular lake show essentially the same pollen record, since, depencling on lake water depth and basin morphology, the percentage pollen representation is rendered homogeneous by processes of redeposition - a uniformity remarked on in several limnological stud(Davis 1968; Berglund 1973). The pollen source area embraces a stream catchment pollen component which includes all the pollen reaching the lake by stream, and derives from surface run-off of pollen from land surfaces, pollen falling directly into the streams from the flanking vegetation and, of course, the pollen from the total pollen catchment component which falls into the streams. In times of flood especially, other additions such as secondary soil pollen may derive from bank erosion, Research by Peck (1973) in Yorksh{re and Bonny (1976, 1978) in the Lake District suggests that in certain circumstances the waterborne component may represent up to 90% of the total pollen deposited in a lake, though considerable variation may be fmmd depending on 1·ake catchment conditions (Bonny 1978; Pennington 1979; Jacobson and Bradshaw

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10

The palaeoecological sequence is similar to that at Ashmoor Common, progressing from wet alder carr through a sedge phase and culminating in wet grassland. The present surface ecology is rough pasture with pollarded willows lining the channel . Lime pollen, as at Ashrnoor Common, declines gradually over some 60 cm from over 12% to under 2% of TLP (Fig.3). The form of the decline cannot be assessed until the closely spaced radiocarbon dates have been counted . The alder curve at Ripple also shows a two - stage decline separated by 40 cm and reflected in the peat type. The first clearance was far less dramatic than at Ashmoor Common, however, reducing alder pollen per centages from about 60% TLP to 30% TLP. This lower level is maintained for approximately 30 cm before it drops to 6% TLP and then less. This stepped form of curve suggests either partial clearance or some form of management which reduced pollen production and decreased the input of alder macrofossil remains into the peat system. The change in ·pe.'lt composition renders the possibility of two distinct and diachronous clearances adjacent to the site unlikely. At Ripple and at Ashn1 H•,· Common hazel pollen drops at the same level as the second alder decline. This may reflect marginal scrub clearance, As yet no radiocarbon dates are available for Ripple but in the nineteenth century, Roman pottc,j was found in the superficial inorganic unit. 1

The clearance of both the terraces and the valley bottom seems to have been completed before replacement of peat by inorganic silty clay containing terrace-derived material. This material is fluvially deposited with probably a significant colluvial input from the terrace edge under 30 m away. The analysis of an abundant and rich diatom flora indicates that the water quality during the peat phase was highly alkaline, containing alkalibiontic species such as Gomphonema olivaceum and Gryosigma accuminatum. High nutrient status is suggested by the presence of such eutrophic species as Diatoma vulgare· and Anomoneis sphaeropora. The water quality does not seem to have remained constant during the peat phase, This is indicated by a pulse of species which are tolerant of less oxygenated waters with higher suspended sediment concentrations (e . g. Synedra ulna) and this contrasts with the clear water to which most freshwater diatoms are suited. The catchment consists of largely base - poor bedrocks including terrace material and Keuper sandstone. The eutrophic status of the water and possible fluctuations in suspended sediment may reflect land-use practices such as burning and particular aspects of agriculture , Although little charcoal was found at Ripple some was deposited at both alder declines. A third site, Callow End (SO 842505) is a Post - glacial cut - off with a palaeo-bluff slope cut into the Main terrace (19 m from the core) 1. 5 km south of the Teme - Severn junction. The stratigraphy is typical of alluvial cut - offs with a basal sand and gravel then clay followed by a thin organic unit below a superficial inorganic clay. The local pollen succession (Fig.4) resembles both Ashmoor and Ripple with alder being replaced by sedges and then grasses. The dry land trees are dominated by lime which reaches 27% TLP. The decline of lime occupies most of t he spectrum, eventually disappearing entirely. The floodplain vegetation was dominated by alder which at about one metre depth declines from over 60% TLP to under 15% and shows a secondary peak of 45% which is obscured by the deposition of fluvial clays possibly derived from overbank flooding or of local origin. Work is in progress on a large peat unit at Longney (SO 766116)

100

0_._

->.

CM

14 ~

12 0

no

100

90

80

~]

F'OLLPi

"i RE ES

1 _

_

_

t==-

Fi g .

4.

H E ASS

T LP

....!...._....!....-~-~--'---'--

SKRUE,$

- ' - '-

~ -

~ ~ -

KER$$

A r el ative pol l en di agram from Ca l low End .

% TL P

% T LP

~---~-~-~-~-~-~-~- ~ - ~-.:..o__.1__.L__. _'.f ____ _L _

L ANO

tRHA T IV E J

END

OI AGR.A.M

SUM ,300 -330

C. E.M.C. 1

PO L LE N

C AI.LOW

~-~-~~

to the south of Gloucester comprising 3.5 m of wood peat overlying estualine clay arid buried by 1.5 m of fluvial clay. The unit was probably first identified by Provost and Reade (1901) and it was noted by Beckinsale and Richardson (1964). It extends laterally across most of the floodplain and surrounds several terrace remnants. A core of 5 min depth approximately 70 m from the terrace has revealed a spectrum with high lime and oak but dominated by alder. The diagram shows a rise of lime which decreases again t owards the top of the peat. The decline of alder is associated with the change of stratigraphy from peat to clay. Unlike the other sites discussed, at Longney oak macroremains form part of the peat (including large trunks of bog oak) suggesting a local bog origin for some of the oak pollen. Therefore the site suggests that l~ne was a major cons t ituent of the terrace wood lands.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

These floodplain spectra suggest two distinct vegetational zones. The high lime percentages suggest that lime was dominant on the terraces before major human interference. Recently the importance of lime in the middle Post-glacial has been stressed (Birks et al. 1975; Greig, this volume p 23) as, clespil:e a resistance to decay (Godwin 1975), the tree's entomophilous pollination mechanism connnonly means that it is unde r- represented in pollen spectra (Anderson 1973). Man's effect on this floodplain zone may well be reflected earlier (as would be expected) than in more remote areas. Turner (1962) has dated lime declines in several sites ranging f rom 3900 bp to 2300 bp and younger, the diachronous nature of this feature being underlined by the estimated early date from Ashmoor Common. The deforestation of the wetter areas of floodplain in this region seems to have been fairly recent, probably within historical times, although the drier areas would have been cleared earlier. The pollen evidence also suggests that primary clearance was followed by either regeneration or some form of management, the most obvious form of which would be coppicing. The coppicing of alder was certainly a well established practice by Medieval times (Rackham 1971). The overall vegetadon history of these areas can be summarized: early terrace clearance around 3700 to 2700 bp and agricultural exploitation (probably arable around 3000 bp); a much later floodplain clearance (around 2500 to 1000 bp) probably after a period of management, leading to a wet meadow syst.em which has survived in a few localities to the present day . The common occurrence of an upper inorganic horizon of colluvial or proximal fluvial origin suggests a complex relationship with land use, there being considerable lags after the deforestation of dry land and terrace woodland, These lags are too great to allow association with soil erosion consequent upon deforestation, However a possibility is the slow deterioration of the soils subsequent to deforestation, the development of argillic soils eventually reaching a stage at which A and E horizons become susceptible to erosion (Limbrey pers.comm.). Another possible explanation is the development of slope base or upstream sediment stores and their later erosion; however, the proximity of the source areas makes this unlikely, The nature of the sediments at Ripple, Callow and the edges of the Ashmoor Common site

102

is consistent with their interpretation as slope wash sediments produced, at least in part, by erosion of the terrace slopes. A likely trigger for this type of accelerated erosion would be the destruction of the soil structure by ploughing or harrowing (or a similar soil preparation technique) under unfavourable weather conditions. The attempt to plough some of the very steep terrace edges without the use of contouring, or minor climatic fluctuations, could have had a similar or allied effect, A similar origin has been put forward by Shotton (1978) for the Buff Red Silty Clay unit of the Severn's floodplain at Hallow, More detailed work on fluvial sequences may show changes in the sediment budget to be related in various ways not only to man's diachronous spatial exploitation, but to technological advances, population history and cognitive systems, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. K.E. Barber and Professor K.J. Gregory for their help and advice; local landowners for access to the sites and N.E.R . C. for the receipt of a research studentship. REFERENCES Anders on , S . T . 19 7 3 ' The differential pollen productivity of trees and its significance for the interpretation of a pollen diagram from a foresl:ed region, 1 In Birks, H.J.B, and West, R.G. (eds.) 9ua!~Enary Plant Ecology (Oxford: Blackwell), ppl09 - 115. Beckinsale, R.P. and Richardson, L. 1964 'Recent findings on the physical development of the Lower Severn Valley.' The Geographical Journal 130, pp87 - 105. Birks, 1:-LJ.B., Deacon, J, and Peglar, S. 1975 'Pollen maps for the British Isles 5000 years ago,' Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B189, pp87-105. Bradbury, J . P. 1978 A Palaeolimnological Comparison of Burnt side and Shagawa Lakes: Northeastern Minnesota, (Minnesota: University, Minneapolis 1:irnnological Research Center). Edwards, IC J. 1979 'Palynological and temporal inference in the context of prehistory, with special reference to the evidence from lake and peat deposits. 1 Journal of Archaeological Science 6, pp255-270. Godwin, H. 1975 History of the British Flora bridge: University Press).

(2nd edition) (Cam-

Huttunen., P. and Tolonen, K. 1975 'Human influence in the history of lake Lovojarvi, S. Finland,' Finskt Museum, pp68 - 105, Mackereth, F.J.H. 1966 'Some chemical observations on Post - glacial lake sediments.' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B250, ppl65-213.

103

Moore, P.D. and Wi lmott, A. 1976 'Prehistoric forest clearance and the development of peatlands in the uplands and lowlands of Britain . ' In New Recogni t ions of Pea t lands and Peat. Vol. II. (Poland: Poznan : 5th Internationa l Peat Congress) , pp7 - 21. Pennington, W. 19 70 'Vege t ation histo r y in the north- west of Engl and: a reg ional synthe s is.' In Walker, D. and West, R.G. (eds.) Studi e s in the Ve getat i ona l History of the British Isles (Cambridge: Univers ity Pr ess ) , pp41 - 79 . Provost , E. W. an d Reade, T.M. 1901 'The peat and forest bed at Westbu r y- on-Sev ern.' Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' - -- ---""--- -- - - - - -- - - - - - Field Club 14 , ppl7 - 31. Rackham , 0 . 1971 'Historical studies and woodland conservation.' In Duf f ey , E. and Watt, A. S. (eds.) The Scientific Management of Anima l s and Pl a nt Communities for Conservation (Oxford: Blackwell) , pp563 - 580 . Shot ton , F . W. 197 8 1 Archaeological inferences from the study of alluvium in th e lower Severn - Avon valleys.' In Limbrey, S. and Evans , J . G. (ed s .) The Effect of Man on the Landscape: The Lowland Zone (London : Council fo r British Archaeology Research Report 21), pp 27- 32. Sirrrrnons , LG . , Atherden, M. A., Cundill , P.R. and Jones, R.L. 1975 'Inorganic laye r s in solig enous mires of the North Yorkshire Moors . ' Jour na l of Bioge ography 2 , pp49 - 56 . Turner , J . 196 2 'The Tilia decline : an anthropogenic interpretation.' New Phyt olo gi s t 61, pp3 28- 341 . Walker, D. 1970 'Direction and rate in some British Post - glacial hydro s e r es . ' In Walker, D. and West, R.G . (eds , ) Studies in the Vegetational Hi story of the British Isles (Cambridge : University Press) , ppll7 - 139 .

104

EVIDENCE FOR THE BURREN'S FOREST COVER Keith Crabtree

INTRODUCTION The vegetation of the Carboniferous limestone area of the Burren, in Co. Clare, Ireland, has been long noted for both its sparseness and its uniqueness; unique in the large number of relative rarities and in the occurrence of areas of low hazel scrub, The ample evidence of man's activities from the Bronze Age onwards in the area leads to the question of just how much man has affected the soils and the vegetation of the area. For a general description of the area of the Burren and for a location map see Drew in this volume. Preservation of organic material in limestone areas is rare, but a fen peat does occur in some of the seasonally flooded depressions. The largest of such is the Carron D_epression whose floor lies at about 120 m above sea level. Parts of the basin and its slopes are clothed in a limestone- rich till of probable last glaciation age. Sweeting (1953) describes the morphology of the basin. The flat floor is crossed by a permanent river, the Castletown River which rises locally in springs, crosses the depression floor and then sinks beneath boulder clay and probably into a cavern systerri, Overall the basin is about 3 km by 1.25 km but only a small proportion is occupied by the flat basin floor. There is a tendency to seasonal flooding. A number of borings made by Hiller borer generally recorded shallow (less than 2 m) peat and clay infill but at one point 4 m of sediment was found with.clays, lake muds and peats. The presence of limnic deposits indicates that the basin had at one time contained an open lake. In this paper the results of the pollen analysis of the 4 m core are presented and used as a basis for some comments on the possible woodland history of the area. Drew (this volume) notes that so far pollen from lake sites marginal to the plateau or from peats adjacent to the limestone have provided some evidence of at least scattered tree cover. Carron is within the limestone upland area. PRESENT VEGETATION AND SOILS The soils of the Burren have been described and mapped by Finch (1971). On the glacial drifts rich brown earths of the Kinvarra Series are present. The limestone and thin drifts have various rendzinas, where soil is still present. The basin floors are occupied by fen peats or gley soils. The present vegetation of the basin floor varies with flooding risk or periodicity and with grazing intensity. Carex - domina t ed calcareous fen vegetation is the ~ain community. The enclosed fields

105

on the till are heavily grazed and have a varied grass, sedge and herbaceous flora. The limestone pavement has a sparse vegetation, mostly within the grykes, but in a few areas, a low hazel scrub provides a complete cover and is underlain by a rich bryophyte community. A number of relative rarities occur in the Burren flora but most of these would not be detectable by pollen analysis. Some of the arctic alpine species, such as Dryas octopetala and Gentiana Verna may have survived since the Late- glacial period on the open limestone cliffs of the area, but unfortunately pollen from such species was not found in these deposits. THE CORE (a)

Stratigraphy

The stratigraphy of the core taken in 1967 is given on the accompanying diagrams (Figs. 1 and 2):

0 - 162 cm 162

-

195 cm

Brown to yellowish brown fibrous peat with occasional bands of marl Coarse fibrous (sedge) peat

195 - 235 cm

White calcareous shelly marl

235 - 292 cm

Grey clay marl

292 - 330 cm

Brovm detritus mud

330 - 378 cm

Grey clay-detritus mud

378 - Lr15 cm

Light blue- grey clay

415 cm

Rock base

The clay/detritus mud/clay marl sequence at the base was suggestive of the Late-glacial stratigraphic sequences recorded by Watts (1963, 1977) at Lough Goller and at Poulroe, Deposits below 195 cm indicate open water present at the site. The marl bands in the upper 162 cm may relate to major flooding periods. (b) Pollen analysis

The pollen diagrams are given as Figs. 1 and 2 . The data are based on the total pollen sum, excluding pollen of aquatic plants-and Pteridophyte spores. Counts were usually greater than 300 and in the upper, Cyperaceae-dominated, samples counts were continued to at least 500. Sample preparation was by standard procedure (e.g. see West 1968). The preservation of the pollen was fairly good in the limnic deposits and reedswamp peat but poor in the upper peats. The pollen diagram may be divided into local assemblage zones on the basis of the dominant or characteristic pollen types present. (AP = Arboreal pollen; NAP= Non arboreal pollen; ~p = total pollen, excluding aquatics and spores • All percentages are based upon the ~P . All botanical names refer to frequencies of pollen grains or spores and not to actual vegetation).

106

Zone CD 1

255 - 350 cm

Gramineae, Cyperaceae, herbaceous pollen assemblage zone, NAP>80%; Gramineae and Cyperaceae both >25%, Low but continuous presence of Empetrum., Juniperus., Rumex., Rubiac.eae and

Tha Zictrum, Upper limit, prior to rise of Juniperus, Zone CD 2

230 - 255 cm

Juniperus assemblage zone, NAP (herbaceous) 'falling to elikt" of Dorn, quoted in Horion 1935) which no longer occur in Britain; 75 individuals of 6 extinct species plus one weevil identifiable only to genus were listed from the Thorne peats. A feature connnon to Thorne Moors and Stileway is that both forests grew in very wet conditions and in fact the Thorne forest was eventually inundated by a flooding episode which Buckland relates to changes in the configuration of Spurn Head at the mouth of the Humber. The very wet conditions of the locality might have afforded protection against the 'Landnam' clearances identified by Turner (1965) in th.e Bronze Age pollen spectrum of Thorne. Similarly, intense human activity, especially pastoralism, has been demonstrated for the island of Meare during the Bronze Age (Beckett and Hibbert 1979), but at Stileway, on the gentle slope of the south east part of the island, some forest survived clearance possibly because the.ground was too wet to be easily, and usefully, deforested. The important dead wood fauna at Stileway is strongly suggestive of matur~ woodland rather than the regeneration identified after Neolithic and Bronze Age clearance elsewhere in the Levels. (v) Spread of 'culture-steppe'

Concomitant with the survival of mature forest in certain, especially unfavourable, areas there is increasing evidence for widespread. forest removal in the Midlands and southern England, especially on fertile and well drained soils. As well as the grassland fauna dominating the late Bronze Age site of Wilsford (Osborne 1969), Runnymede, a Thames Valley site of the same age (Longley and Needham 1979), has produced a meadowland pollen suite

136

Plate I.

Rhysodes sulcatus

a) pronotum and b) elytral base from the Baker Platform site of the Somers et Levels Scanning electron micrograph (magnification a= x56, b = x83)

137

Plate II .

Bothrideres contractus,head and pronotum from Stileway , Scanning electron micrograph (magnification x51).

138

associated with abundant dung and grassland beetles (Girling and Grei g unpublished data) . By the Iron Age, evidence for a predominantly cleared landscap e is more extensive . For example the re is the fauna at Iron Age Fishen,ick (Osborne 1979), and at two Thames Valley sites of Mingie's Ditch and Farmoor which produced respectively 1% and less than 0.,01% woodland beetles (Robinson 1981) substantiating the low arbo real pollen values at the site (D imb leby, quoted in Robi nson 1981) . A similar pattern has emerged at the Iron Age ring ditch at Tattershall Tho r pe , excavated by Mr P . Chowne, where dung and grassland species predominate (unpublished data) . At the Iron Age Lake Village of Meare, true woodland species ~ade up an insignificant faunal element~ although the timber pest Anobium punctatum (Deg.) was present in hundreds (Girl ing 1979a) . From Roman times onwards, beetle evidence for virtually treeless landsc apes around se ttlements is substantial, and indirect evidence for the importance of cereal culti vation is signified by records of food store pests, the most serious of which are imported beetles with possible Middle Eastern or Mediterranean origins (Osbo rne 1978) . Their occurrence in Roman and later Britain is sunnnarized by Buckland (1981). Since Roman times, emphasis on agricultural land- use has ensured the continuation of the largely deforested landscape, except where del i berate attempts have been made to protect the dwindlin g woodland. From Saxon times onwards such attempts include the deliberate planting of forests first by the Norman kings for hunting, and later for shipbuilding , smelting and othe r indust r ial practices, and furniture making, the proce ss culmin a ting in the coniferous monocultures of the present Forestry Commi s sion. The British beetle faunas o f the cleared sites from the Bronze Age onwar ds display affinities with the treeless steppe faunas of Central and Eastern Europe and Asiatic USSR although differences are dict ated by the degree of con tinen tality of the climate . Analogous faunas exi sted in Mid- glacial midland and southern England about L13,000 years ago when rapid climatic amelioration resu lted in a temperate treeless landscape, the beetle faunas of which showed striking similarities with that of post- Neolithic Britain (Girling 1974, 1980b ; Coope and Angus 1975) , although the forme r is clima te- steppe , the latter culture steppe . The pre- Neolithic faunas more clearly resemble the temperate interglacial stages of the Cromerian, Hoxnian and Ipswichian (eg Shotton and Osborne 1965; Osborne 1980b), which offe r the best mode ls for the type of beetle fauna which might have been pres ent in Britain today, but for the interference of man. EXTINCTIONS FROM THE BRITISH FAUNA Over 20 species of beetle recorded from Post- glacial Britain have disappeared from this count ry, and considerably more have undergone a seriou s range contraction . The two causal mechanisms for these e xtinctions are climate change and forest clearance (Osborne 1964) . Our present knowledge indicates a larger proportion of forest induced extinc tions and, al though it is prob ab le that climatic change has played some role in thei r disappearance, it might not be significant within the protected environment of woodland where temperature extremes are reduced to create a more equable microclimate than that of an open landscape.

139

AGE NAME

MES

Rhysodes suZcatus F.

NEO

NEO/BA

SH BP

Batrisus formicarius Aub~

BA TM

SW

cs

Porthmidius austriacus Sch. Cerambyx cerdo L.

?BO

Isorhipis meZasoides (Lap.).

HH

BP

MC TM

Pelta grossum (L . )

TM

Prostomis mandibuZaris (F • ) Pycnomerus terebrans 01.

TM

cs

Bothrideres contractus F.

SW SW

Mycetina cruciata Sch .

TM

RhopaZodontus hauderi

TM

Abeille

Eremotes e Zongatus Gyll.

cs

E. strangulatus Perr .

cs

E,punctuZatus Boh .

Table 1

pBA

SW

Occurrence at British sites of wood- dependent beetles now extinc t f r om this country

Key to sites: HH, Hampstead Heath, Girling and Greig (1977) ; SH, Shus toke , Kelly and Osborne (1964); CS, Church Stret ton (including Wo rl dsend) , Osborne (1972); BP, Baker Platform, Girling (1980a); BO, Bog Oak re co rds, Duffy (1968); TM, Thorne Moors, Buckland (1979) ; MC, Mi sterton Carr, Osborne (unpublished data). SW, Stileway, Girling (in prep) . '

140

The forest extinctions are mainly amongst.wood- borers and predators whi ch develop in the galleries of their hosts. One species omitted from this list because it is a water beetle ·nevertheless deserves brief mention as a cid- pools in coniferous forests are its usual habitat. Agabus wasastjer>nae Sahl., recorded by Osborne (19 72) from Zone VIIb deposits at Wo rl dsend, has since undergone a northwards retraction in range and now occurs in continental par ts of Scandinavia, A simple explanation of climatic cooling is untenable in view of contemporary .vecords for beetles whose ranges now lie predominantly south of this country. It might, however, prove to be an indicator of a more continental climatic regime a lthough an anomalo us range produced by human disruption ;fits primary habitat can also be proposed for A. Wasastjernae as well as other woodland beetles with is olated or disjunct present day distributions. The occur rence in Mesolithic to Bronze Age sites of all known wood- dependent beetles now extinct in Britain is summarized in Table 1. No r ecords have been made for this group later than the Bronze Age although Iron Age, Roman and one Medieval occurrences have been registered of beetles whose disappearance is attributed to climatic factors. A number of the forest extinctions are today exceedingly rare in mainland Europe, a particular example being Rhysodes su l catus F. whose steady decline has been traced within recent hi s toric times by old collecting records (Ho ri on 1935). The species is of entomological interest as it retains a number of primitive features of t h e ancestral forms of the predaceous groundbeetl e and wa te r -beetle families (Crowson 1955) . Plate I shows an example of a p r onotum and elytra l base of R. sulcatus from the Somerset Le vel s. In marked con trast, Bafa~isus formicarius Aube is widespread in mainland Europe, reach ing the coast of Northern France and this distribu ti on demonstrates the importance of the English Channel as a barrier t o re - immigration of species. This is better illustrated by ce rtain climatically extinct beetles such as Anthicus gracilis Panz . which has occurred at several Somerset Levels sites (eg,Girling 1979b) but whose p re sent widespread range throughout Europe suggests that suitable conditions exist at least in southern Britain today . I ts absence from this country is attributed to an episode of colder climate which eliminated the species from these shores, its re turn now being blocked by the Ch annel. It may be argued that suitable habitats are present in forests such as Windsor for B. formicarius , and indeed other specie s listed as forest e x tinctions , but the lack of continuity .of such environments has dislodged these beetle s because of their low di spersal capacity. B. formicarius, unlike the other listed species, is neither a wood (or wood- fungus ) feeder nor one of their predators, but has become adapted to living in ants' nests in decaying trees or stumps. This myrmecophilous habit is also displayed to some extent by the preda,t ors Pycnomerus terebrans 01., Bothrideres contractus F. and Isorhipis melasoides (Lap.). The ant Lasius brunneus (Late . ) is often implicated in these relationships, although Dajoz (1977) questions whether th e association is truly myrmecophilous in the case of _C olydiidae . At Stileway, B. contractus, figured in Plate II, was identified alongside several species upon which it is known to prey, including Leiopus nebulosus (L.). Elateridae are generally associated with grassland, their larvae,

141

known as wire- worms, often b eing so abundant as to warrant agri cultural pest status. Porthmidius au.striaaus Sch. is one of a smaller number of elaterids whose larval development takes place in wood . Its only known occurrence in Britain is the Zone VIIb deposits at Worldsend (Osbo rne 1972) . Another group of wood- borers are the Cossoninae weevils of which Eremotes is a constituent genus. Today in Britain, this genus is represented by a single spec ies, E. ater (L . ), known from Sherwood Forest and the Scottish Highl ands but with more recent , isolated records from forestry plantations further south. This apparently northern range is, however , belied by fossil records for the species at Hampstead Heath and the Some~set Levels. The species often fee ds on conifers, but a number of deciduous trees are found amongst its hosts, and it even attacks seasoned timber . Furthermore , reco r ds of three more species have been made for Post glacial Britain : E. eZongatus· Gyll . and stranguZatus Perr . from Worldsend and E. punatuZatus Boh . from Stileway. The two former spe cie s are mainly taken on Pinus and Picea whereas E. punctuZatus feeds on deciduous as well as decaying coniferous stump s (Folwaczny 1977). It would appear that the dependence of the genus on decayed wood, which in turn implies mature woodl and , has led to the severe restriction of the whole genus resulting from forest clearance. A parallel can be dravm with another co ssonine weevil , Brachytemnus submuricatus Schon ., which is a common member of previous interglacial faunas , (eg Shotton and Osborne 1965; Girling 1980b). Presently, the species displays a very southern European range in Spain, Mediterrane an France and Italy o It is tempting to suggest that in addi tion to, or possibly instead of 1 a straightforward climatic control , its present r estricted range has been influenced by deforestation.

Cerambyu:; cerdo L. differs from other species li s ted here in that its claim to be native was initially based on old colle cting records which have been questioned. Subseq uently, remains of the be etle have been recovered from bog oaks. The first fossil find was by Duffy (1968) f r om a Cambridgeshire bog oak dated at about 4,000 years BP, althougl:i he questioned the contemporaneity of the wood and the beetle remains. Since then further bo g oak finds from Britain have been made (Harding and Plant 1978 ). The other extinctions are based upon studies of assemblages of insects which are continuing to furnish evidence of a much richer forest beetle fauna dating from befo re man I s onslaught upon their habitats. REFERENCES Allen, A. A. 1969 'Ernoperus caucasicus Lind. and Leperesinus orni Fuchs. (Col. , Scolytidae) in Britain'. Entomologists' Monthly Magazine 105, pp245 - 49. Beckett , S. C. and Hibbert , F. A. 1979 'Vegetational change and the influence of prehisto ri c man in the Somerset Levels '. New Phytologist 83, pp57.7 - 600. Buckland , P . C. 1975 1 Synanthropy and the deathwatch: The Naturalist 100 (933) , pp37 - 42.

142

a discussion'.

Buckland, P.C. 1979 Thorne Moors: a palaeoecological study of a Bronze Age site. (Birmingham: University, Department of Geography, Occasional Publication 8). Buckland, P.C 1981 'The early dispersal of insect pests of stored products as indicated by archaeological records'. Journal of Stored Products Research 17, ppl-12. Buckland, P.C. and Kenward, H K. 1973 'Thorne Moor: a palaeoecological study of a Bronze Age site'. Nature (London) 241,pp405-6. Chrystal, R.W. 1937 Insects of the British Wo~dlands. (London: Warne). Coles, J.M. and Orme, B.J. 1978 'Structures south of Meare Island'. Somerset Levels Papers 4, pp90-lOO. Coope, G.R. 1965 'The response of the British insect fauna to Late Quaternary climatic oscillations' •. Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Entomologists, London, pp444-5. Coope, G.R. 1970 'Interpretations of Quaternary insect fossils'. Annual Review of Entomology 15, pp97 - 120. Coope, G.R. 1977 'Fossil Coleoptera assemblages as sensitive indicators of climatic change during the Devensian (last) cold stage'. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 280, pp313-40. Coope, G R., Shotton, F.W. and Strachan, I. 1961 'A Late Pleistocene fauna and flora from Upton Warren, Worcestershire'. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 244, pp379-42L Coope, G.R. and Brophy, J.A. 1972 'Late Glacial environmental changes indicated by a Coleopteran succession from North Wales'. Boreas 1, pp97- 142. Coope, G.R. and Angus, R.B. 1975 'An ecological study of a temperate interlude in the middle of the last glaciation, based on fossil Coleoptera from Isleworth, Middlesex'. Journal of Animal Ecology 44, pp365-91 Cooter, J. 1980 'A note on E:rnoporua caucaaicus Lind. (Col., Scolytidae) in Britain 1 • Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 116, ppll2 . Crowson, R.A. 1955 The natural classification of the families of Coleoptera, Reprinted 1967 (Hampton: Glassey). Dajoz, R. 1977 Coleopteres Colydiidae et Anomrnatidae Palearctiques Faune de L 1 Europe et du Bassin Mediterraneen (Paris: Masson). Dirnbleby., G.W. 1962 The development of British heathlands and their soils (Oxford: Forestry Memoir 23). Duffy, E.A.J. 1968 'The status of Cerambyrc L. (Col.,Cerambycidae) rn Britain'. Entomolo~ists Gazette 19, ppl64-6.

143

Folwaczny , B. 1977 'Bestimmungst abelle der Palaarktischen Cossoninae (CoL Cure . ) 1 • Ent orn_2]:~i sche Blatter 69, pp65 - 180 . Gi r ling , M.A . 1974 'Evidence from Lincolnshire on the age and intensity of the Mid-Devensian temperate episode'. Nature (London) 250 , pp270 o Girlin g, M. A. 19 79a 'The fo s s i l insect assemb lages fr om the Meare Lake Vill age'., Somerset Level s Papers 5, pp 25- 32 . Girlin g, M. A. 1979b 'Fossil insec ts fr om the Sweet Track' . Levels Paper~ 5, pp84-93.

Somerset

Girling, M. A. 1980a 'The fossil insect assemblages from the Baker site'. Somerset Leve l s Papers 6, pp36 - 42. Girlin g, M. A. 1980b ' Tiw late Pleistocene insect faunas from Lincolnshi re' . (Bi r mingh am~ Un i ve r sity, unpubl ished Ph . D. thesis) . Girling , M.,A,, ( in prep. ) 'An 1 o1d- f ores t' beetle fa una from a Neolith ic and Bronze Age pea t deposit at Stileway , Some r set Levels'. Girling , M. A. and Greig, J.R .A. 1977 'Palaeoecological investigations of a site at Hampstead Heath , London 1 • Nature (London) 268, pp45-L17 . Godwin , H. 1975 Th e Hist ory of the Br itish Flora, 2nd Ed . (Camb r idge : University Press ) . Harding, P . T. and Plant , R. A. 1978 ' A s econd reco r d of Cerambyx cerdo L. (Coleoptera : Cerambycidae ) from sub - fossil remains in Britain' . Entomologist's Gazette 29, ppl50-2. Horion. A. 1935 Nachtrag zu Fauna Germani ca K~fer. (Kre feld). Horion , A. 1953 Faunstik der Mittel eur opaischen Kafer, 3. Malacodermata Sterno:x:ia. (Munchen : Eigenverlag) . Iversen , J . 1941 'Landnami Stena lder: Land occupation in Denmark' s Stone Age 1 , Danmar ks geologiske Unders~gelse, Series II , 66, ppl- 68. Kelly, M,, and Osb or ne, P • .J .. 196Li 'Two faun as and floras from the a.lluvium at Sh us toke, Warwickshire 1 • Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 176, pp37- 65 . · Kloet, G. S. and Hincks, W. D. 1977 A Checklist of British Insects, 2nd Ed . Coleopte ra and Strepsiptera . (London : Royal Entomological Society) . Longley , D. and Needham, S. 19 79 1 Egham : A late Bronze Age settlemen t and waterfront'. Current Archaeology 68 , pp262 - 267. Lorrimer, D. Home, 1976 'A Mesol ithic site on West He a th, Hampstead A prelimin ary report ' . London Archaeologist 2, pp407- 9.

144

Morris, M. G. and Perring, FoH. (eds . ) 1974 The British Oak . (London: Faringdon). Osborne, P.J. 196Li 'The effect of forest clearance on the distribution of the British insect fauna'. Proceedings of the 12th. International Con gres s of Entomologists, London, pp456 - 57. Osborne, P.J. 1969 'An insect fauna of Late Bronze Age date from Wilsford , Wiltshire 1 • Jour nal of Animal Ecology 38, ppSSS - 66. Osborne, P . J . 1972 'Insect faunas of Late Devensian and Flandrian age from Church Stretton, Shropshire'. Philosophical Transactions 2f the Royal Society of London, Series B, 263, pp327 - 67. Osborne , P . J . 1974 'An inse~t assemblage of early Flandrian age from Lea Marston , Warwickshire, and its bearing on the contemporary climate and ecology' . Quater nary Research 4, pp471- 86. Osborne, P. J . 1976 'Evidence from the insects of climatic variations during t he Flandrian pe ri od : a preliminary note'. World Archaeology 8, pplS0- 158 . Osborne, P. J . 1978 'Insect evidence for the effect of man on the lowland lands cape'. In Limhrey, s. and Evans, J.G. (eds.) The Effect of Man on the landscape: the Lowland Zone . (London : CBA Re se arch Repor t 21) pp32 - 4. Osbo rne , P. J. 1979 'Inse c t remains'. In Smith, c. (ed . ) Fisherwick, (Oxf ord : British Archaeological Reports , British Series 61) pp85 - 87 and 189- 93. Osborne, P. J . 1980a 'The late Devensian- Flandrian transition depicted by serial insect faunas from West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England' . Boreas 9, ppl39 - Lf8. Osborne , P . J. 1980b 'The insect fauna of ta organic deposits at Sugworth and its environmental and st r atigraphic implications' . Philosophical Transac tions of t he Royal Society of London, Series B 289, ppll9 - 33. Rackham, o. 1976 Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. (London : Dent). Rackham, O. 1980 Ancient Woodland .

(London: Arnold).

Robinson, M. 1981 'The Iron Age to Early Saxon environment Upper Thames Terraces' . In Jones, M. and Dimbleby, G. W. The Environmen t of Man: the Iron Age to the Anglo-Saxon (Oxford : Bri tish Archaeological Reports, British Series pp251-86 .

of the (eds . ) Period. 87)

Rozhkov, A.S. 1970 Pes ts of Siberian Larch, Translated from the Russian (Jerusalem: Keter) . Shotton, F. W. and Osborne , P . J . 1965 'The fauna of the Hoxnian Interglacial deposits of Nechells, Birmingham'. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 2 Series B 248, pp353- 78.

145

Simmons, I.G . 1969 'Pollen diagrams f r om the North York Moors . Phytologist 68? pp807- 827.

New

Simmons, I.G. 1975 'Towar ds an ecology of Mesolithic man in the uplands of Great Britain' . Journal of Archaeological Science 2, ppl- 15. · Smith, A. G. 1970 'The influence of Mesolithic and Neolithic man on British vegetation : a discussion' . In Walker, D. and West, R. G. (eds.) Studies in the Vegetational History of the British Isles, (London : Camb'ridge University Press) pp81- 96 Turner, J . 1965 'A contribution to the history of Forest Clearance'. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London , Series B 161, pp343- 54. Zhuravlev, I.I . and Osmolovskii, G. E. 1949 Pests and diseases of shade trees , Translated from the Russian. (Jerusalem: Sivan).

146

NEOLITHIC ENCLOSURES AND WOODLAND HABITATS ON THE SOUTH DOWNS IN SUSSEX, ENGLAND K.D. Thomas Many of the contributors to this conference have stressed the problems of interpreting pollen assemblages derived from peat deposits developing at some, usually .unknown, distance from past human settlements. In this paper I hope to deal with some of the problems of interpreting assemblages of land snails preserved in archaeological contexts and in particular with the difficulties of reconstructing past woodland habitats. INTRODUCTION Relatively little work has been done on the palaeoenvironments of the South Downs compared with the North Downs in Kent (e.g. Kerney 1963; Kerney et al . 1964; Kerney et al. 1980) and the chalklands of Wessex (e.g. Evans 1968, 1971, 1972). This apparent neglect can only be partly e xplained by the lack of pollen studies because the same problems of poor preservation of pollen apply to the other regions mentioned, ·where an a lyses of land- snail assemblages have produced valuable information. A recent review by Sheldon (1978) shows that most of our information about past environments in Sussex relates to the Pleistocene period or to Post - glacial contexts situated away from the Chalk outcrop of the South Downs. Previous work Palynological investigations by Anne Thorley in the Lower Ouse Valley (e.g . Thorley 1981) have shown that the surrounding Chalk Downs were probably well - wooded from early Post- glacial times until the Middle Bronze Age. Thorley's pollen spectra reveal temporary vegetation clearances in the Neolithic and more permanent clearance in the Bronze Age . Samples for bhis study were obtained from peat deposits within one kilometre of the Chalk outcrop. We cannot be sure that such locations would receive significant amounts of pollen from the vegetation on the Chalk; recent studies have stressed the difficulty of knowing the catchment area for any pollen- bearing deposit (Edwards 1979, and this volume pS ). The River Ouse, flowing in the valley, presents a further potential problem of fluvial input of pollen from the Weald, which is where the Ouse rises and which was certainly wellwooded in the past (Sheldon 1978). Work by Bonny (1978) has shown the high potential of streams for carrying pollen into lakes and while high rates of input of river - borne pollen may not have obtained in the Lower Ouse Valley, because the peats appear to have a low mineral component, the possibility of some long- distance transport by this means cannot be disregarded. Anne Thorley's data are some of the best that we have regarding the status of woodland on the South Downs in the Post-glacial (see also Waton, this volume p85 ), but there is a

147

need for palaeoenvironmental data from the downlands themselves, Pollen studies on calcareous soils buried under archaeological sites on the Wessex chalklands (Dimbleby and Evans 1974) have produced assemblages of poorly- preserved pollen grains which seem to have been mixed by the activity of earthworms, thereby destroying any stratification by age, The pollen in these soils appears to relate to the vegetation just before burial. Studies upon the buried soils themselves indicate that they may have been both thicker and less calcar eous in the past and that this may be consistent with development under a woodland cover (e.g. Limbrey 1975). Recent work by Bell (1981) on dry valley sediments in the South Downs demonstrates the large amount of soil erosion which has occurred, largely as a result of human activity, at various times in the Post - glacial period. The colluvial sequence in the dry valley at Itford Bottom, near Lewes, pro duced evidence for clearance of secondary woodland in the Bronze Age (Bell 1981, p81); this correlates well with the interpretations of Thorley (1981), discussed above. Martin Bell's study involved the application of a number of techniques including the analysis of assemblages of land-snails. In this paper I use these techniques in an analysis of the ecological setting of the Neolithic enclosures of Sussex. There are three major groups of Neolithic sites in Sussex: burial monuments, flint mines and enclosures (Drewett 1978); evidence for settlements is very scanty. Evans and Jones (1981) have recently dis cussed the land-snail assemblages from the Sussex flint mines, along with those from other such sites in southern and eastern England. Few studies have been made on the palaeoenvironmental evidence from burial monuments (e.g. Drewett 1975). Neolithic enclosures Neolithic enclosures (sometimes called 'causewayed enclosures' or 'causewayed camps', although one non- causewayed example is known and it is by no means certain that any were 'camps') in Sussex and else where have been the subject of much recent research and debate, This paper is not the place in which to discuss the complex issues regarding the possible function, or functions, of these structures; readers may refer to Renfrew (1973), Wilson (1975), Drewett (1977), Whittle (1977) and Orme (1981) for the backgr ound. In general, environmental considerations have not been to the fore in the debate although Barker and Webley (1978) have attempted to analyse Neolithic enclosures from an environmental and palaeoeconomic viewpoint. They formulate a model in which the enclosures of central southern England are seen as foci of the exploitation territories of human populations practising pastoralism as the main mode of subsistence . They suggest, by rather selective use of palaeoenvironmental data, that "more or less open conditions predominated naturally on the Wessex uplands in early neolithic times .. " (Barker and Webley 1978, pl67); these assertions have been challenged by Evans (1978). By quoting the work of Mellars (1976), Barker and we;bley (1978, pl86) suggest that the Neolithic landscape should be reassessed in view of models of Mesolithic landuse; presumably the implication is that any woodland on the Chalk in the Post - glacial had been effectively removed by the ac t ivities of Mesolithic populations. The evidence for Mesolithic activity in the

148

chalklands is slight (Mellars and Reinhardt 1978) and there is no pal aeoenvironmental evidence for clearance of woodland on the Chalk in the Mesolithic peri od, Mesolithic artifacts are rare on the South Downs in Sussex but are common on the Lower Greensand, the Weald Clays and the Ashdown Sands (Jacobi 1978), · The present study of the environmental setting of Neolithic enclosares reli~s upon evidence obtained from recent exca~ations undertaken by the Sussex Archaeological Field Unit and a few soil samples stored in museums ; site- catchment analysis has not been employed,

THE SITES Until recently, five Neolithic enclosures were known in Sussex, all of causewayed type but otherwise differing in size and structure (see Drewett 1977, Fig . lB) . An enclosure with a continuous ditch and dated to the middle of the 3rd millenium be has recently been described (Bedwin 1980), bringing the number of known Neolithic enclosures in Sussex up to six. Recent reviews of these enclosures are given by Drewett (1977, 1978) and Bedwin (1980); their locations are shown in Fig. L The following site- by- site account of these enclosures concentrates upon the conditions and contexts which they offer for the preservation and recovery of palaeoenvi r onmental data; readers will find full archaeological details in the cited excavation reports. Land- snai l analyses were performed upon soil samples from all the sites save Whitehawk, where no recent excavations have occurred, In general, shells we r e extracted from 1kg samples of soil by the method outlined by Evans (1972, pp44 - 47). The results from each site are presented here in synoptic form, in terms of the representation of various ecological groups (see, for example, Evans 1972, ppl94 - 203; Cameron and Morgan- Huws 1975; Cameron 1978) . Full lists of the species recovered from the sites either have been published or will be publish~d in due course . Offham HiU

(Fig . l ; site no . 5)

Locat ed on a north- facing slope to the west of the valley of the river Ouse (G ri d Ref. TQ 399118), this enclosure consisted of two concentric banks and ditches which have been extensively quarried away on the eastern side by a nineteenth century chalk pit. A rescue excavation was undertaken in 1976 (Drewett 1977) to recover as much information as possible before the site was finally obliterated by ploughing . A radiocarbon date of 2975 ± 80 be (BM- 1414) was obtained from oak charcoal from the primary silts of the inner ditch and of 2790 ± 60 be (BM-2790) for the stratigraphic layer above these primary silts (Drewett and Bedwin 1981) . The·banks, along with buried soils, had been obliterated by the plough exc e pt for a remnant of bank at the very edge of the chalk quarry. Here a layer of fine humic soil, some 10cm thick, was pre served under a mere 7cm of chalk rubble, presumably all that was left of the outer bank at this spot. A sample of this material was taken

149

SUSS EX :

NEO U T HIC ENCLOS URES

0,..._ _ _.., 16 , km

Fig . l .

Neol i thi c e nclosure s in Sus s ex. 1 : The Trundl e; 2 : Ba rkhale; 3 : Bury Hill ; 4 : Whit ehawk; 5 : Offham Hill ; 6 : Combe Hill. Th e d otte d lines enclo s e the Chalk outcrop of the South Downs .

for analys is . Th e ditches and thei r f ills we r e well - p r eserved and a ser ies of s o i l samples was take n . Only samples from t he ea rly phases of the di tch f ill a re considered he re; t l}e primary fi ll ( samples 4 from the inne r an d outer ditches) a nd the early s econd a r y fill (samples 3) , all o f t hes e being Neolithic in date. Li s t s o f t he species o f sn ai ls r ecove re d from t hese s amples have been publi s hed elsewhere (Thoma s 1977) a nd a f inal repo rt on t he moll uscs from th is si te is i n prepa r at ion . The fr equenc i es of the ecol ogical gr oups and t he numbe r s o f t axa present a r e given in Table 1. All o f t h e as s emblages are dominated by shade- loving species but open- coun t r y s pecies are represent ed at low frequenci e s in samples from the bur ied so il and laye r 3 o f t he inner ditch. One of these open- country spe ci es, Vallonia cos t at a, is sometimes a ssociated with assemblage s o f woo dl a nd molluscs from prehistoric contex ts . The occurrence of op en- country species in these two context s, associated with an i n crease in the abund a nce of Pomatias e l egans , is taken to indicat e wo odland clea rance . The re l a tively small number of opencountr y colon is ts may i ndicate a ve ry localized clea r i n g in an other wise wooded areaj t he woodland a ctin g as an ecologic a l barrier to the effective d isp ers al of shade- into l e rant species . The t ho r oughly woodland ch ara c ter o f the snail a s s emblages from the Neo l ithic depos its in the outer di tch probabl y indica tes the persistence of woodland around th e si te a nd i ts gradual regene r ation following abandonment of the enclo s ur e. The later (undated) fill of both di t ches is quite different in charac te r from the Neolithic fill : it is much darker , partly due to increased charcoal content, with fewer st~ne s and greater friabilit y, an d contains assembla ge s of snails of open- country species. These latte r assemblages have been rather mixed by the plough but are ecologic all y con s istent and must indicate e x tens ive clearance of woodland around t h e site.

Bury Hill (Fig . l; s i t e no,3) This e nclosure is s ituated on Bu r y Hill (Grid Re f. TQ 005124) on the northern ed ge of the South Downs overlooking the valley of the

15 0

TABLE 1, Representation of ecological groups of land snails at Offham Hill (A) Percentage frequencies Ecological group

Outer bank buried soil

Outer ditch 4 3

Inner ditch 4 3

Shade- loving

25,0

77. 7

80 ,·L+

91. 3

49.5

Pomatias elegans

51.7

9.3

5.9

2.2

29.4

Catholic

18 . 3.

13.0

13. 7

6.5

17.2

Open- country

5,0

0

0

0

3.9

Number of specimens

60

54

51

129

(B) Number of taxa Ecological group

Outer bank buried soil

Outer ditch 4 3

Inner ditch 4

3

Shade-loving

3

7

6

7

6

Pomat1~as e legans

1

1

1

1

1

Catholic

3

3

2

3

3

Open- country

1

0

0

0

3

Total taxa

8

11

9

11

13

river Arun. The site, an enclosure with a single continuous ditch, was located from the air as a soil mark; it has been severely damaged by ploughing, A rescue excavation was undertaken in 1979 (Bedwin 1980, 1981). Antler from the bottom of the ditch gave a radiocarbon date of 2620 :!: 80 be (HAR- 3595) and a bone from the ditch floor gave a date of 2730 ~ 80 be (HAR- 3596). The bank had been destroyed so no buried soils were preserved. Samples of material were taken from the ditch and snail shells extracted; the results are shown in summary form in Table 2, full details have been published elsewhere (Thomas 1981). Ditch samples 1 and 2 are from the modern ploughed topsoil and subsoil, respect ively , The assemblages from these samples are sparse but are dominated by open- country snails and compatible catholic elements, They contrast sharply with the assemblages from samples 3 and 4 which are dominated by shade-·loving species and other ecologically- compatible elements. These latter assemblages probably indicate woodland conditions; only one individual of an open- country species (Pupilla muscorum) occurs in a total of 333 snails from the two samples. The

151

TABLE 2 Representation of ecological groups of land snails at Bury Hill (A) Percentage frequencies Ecological group

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Sample 4

Shade- loving

0

0

89,0

92 .8

Pomatias elegans

0

0

3.8

0,8

Catholic

0

19 . 2

6.7

6.4

100

80.8

0,5

0

3

26

210

123

Sample 1

Sample

Open- country Number of specimens

(B) Number of taxa Ecological group

Sample

2

3

Sample 4

Shade-loving

0

0

10

9

Pomatias elegans

0

0

1

1

Catholic

0

1

5

4

Open-country

2

3

1

0

Total taxa

2

4

17

14

almost total lack of open- country elements in samples 3 and 4 is taken to indicate thst the enclosure was constructed in a newly- cleared area of woodland; this clearance was probably very localized, Later widespread clearance gave rise to the assemblages of snails in samples 1 and 2,

The Trundle (Fig,l ; site no,l) Situated high on the South Downs (at Grid Ref . SU 877110) with good views in all directions, this causewayed enclosure is almost entirely contained within the remains of an Iron Age earthwork. The enclosure.consists of an inner circular ditch and bank surrounded by a curious spiral ditch and bank and, to the north and largely oblit erated by the Iron Age ramparts, a few segments of an interrupted ditch. Excavations were made by Curwen (1929, 1931) and in 1980 Owen Bedwin undertook a limited rescue excavation in the ditch of the outermost of the two western arms of the spiral ditch. Radio-

152

carbon dates of 3290 + 140 be (I- 11, 615), for layer 4 of ditch II, and 2910 + 100 be (I- 1 1, 612), for layer 3 of ditch III, have recently been obtalned (Dr ewett and Bedwin 1981) . Five samples of material from the ditch were analysed for landsnails and synopses of the results are given in Table 3 . Sample 1 is from the mod ern soil, sample 2 from a phase of Iron Age infill, sample 3A probably represents a worm- sorted soil developed in the Neolithic ditch sediments and samples 3 and 4 are from the rubbly Neolithic ditch- fill. The as semblages of snails are rather small, especially the one from sample 4 . The modern and Iron Age assemblages are dominated , both in proportions of species represented and numbers of taxa, by open- country and catholic elements . Open- country species are much rarer in samples 3A, 3 and 4 and, in the latter two samples, are dominated by VaUonia costata, which has been recorded from prehistoric woodland assemblages. If this species is removed from the open-co untry category of samples 3 and 4, the group is represented only by Pupilla muscorum at frequencies 2.4% and 4.4%, respectively. Shade- loving elements plus Pomatias elegans dominate samples 3A, 3 and 4. ThEt molluscs from samples 3 and 4 may. represent woodland assemb lages and could indicate a localized woodland clearing, given the low frequency of obligate op en- country species. The assemblage from sample 3A is less easily interpreted because of the strong possibility of a long stand-still phase associated with soil formation at this level in the ditch . A high frequency of shade- demanding species, represented by a large number of taxa, indicates a woodland element in the assemblage, but the open- country element (Pupilla muscorum~ VaUonia exccntrica and HeliceUa itala) is at quite a high frequency. The ·relatively high abundance of Aegopinella nitidula (9%) in this sample may sugges t scrub conditions (e.g. Evans 1972, pl90). However , given the context of an apparently worin- sorted soil, the assemblage probably contains an earlier woodland element , coeval with the actual sediments of the ditch, mixed with later open- country elements assoc iated with the phase of soil formation and intruded by the activity of earthworms. Of course there may also be a scrub element, which could be earlier or later than the open- country element. The late r his t ory of the Neolithic site, as represented by the snail assemblages fr om sample 3A, is not easy to interpret. From the evidence of samples 3 and 4 it is likely that the enclosure was constructed in an area which had only r ecently been cleared of wood land . This clearing ma y have later reverted to woodland or to scrub before later permanent and extensive clearance. These interpretations are in line with the evidence of Kennard and Woodward (1929), who list the species recovered from Curwen's excavations. No quantification, or even an indication of relative abundance, is given but the assemblages described by Kennard and Woodward are dominated by shade - preferring species; these workers suggest .a damp woodland environment in the Neolithic and less damp conditions (habit at unspecified) in the Iron Age.

Combe Hill (Fig.l; site no.6) This site is located · on the chalk escarpment . looking north from

153

TABLE 3 Representation of ecological groups of land snails at the Trundle (A) Percentage frequencies Sarnp le 1

Sample 2

Sample 3A

Sample 3

Sample 4

0

7

39.8

21. 2

17.4

8.8

17,6

14.4

20 , 0

26 . 1

Catholic

43.8

38.8

34 . 0

48.2

43.5

Open- country

47 .4

36.5

11.8

10.6

13.0

57

85

153

85

23

Sarnp le 2

Sample 3A

Sample 3

Sample 4

Ecological group Shade - loving

Pomatias elegans

Number of specimens

(B) Number of taxa Ecological group

Sample 1

Shade - loving

0

4

11

6

3

Pomatias elegans

1

1

1

1

1

Catholic

3

3

4

4

2

Open- country

7

5

3

2

2

11

13

19

13

8

Total taxa

the eastern limi t of the Sou t h Downs (Grid Ref. TQ 57 4021), The two concentric and discontinuous bank and ditch systems are bounded on the north by the steeply sloping chalk scarp. Excavations were made by Musson (1950) in the deposits of the western side of the inner ditch and the molluscs recovered were studied by Jackson (1950). A radioca r bon date of 2640 + 110 be (I- 11, 613) has recently been ob tained from layer 3 of di t ch 1 (Drewett and Bedwin 1981). P . Drewett and C. Cartwright have recently located bags of soil from Mr. Musson's excavation and these have been made available to me for the analysis of land- snails. The soil samples had been taken in spits from the surface of the ditch downwards. Three samples were available for analysis : 12 to 15 inches, 15 to 21 inches (this could be mis - labelled and be 15 - 18 inches), and 18 to 21 inches. According-to the table of levels given by Musson (1950, pl08) all of these samples are from the Neolithic fill of the ditch. Only sample 15/21 (?18) produced an assemblage of molluscs of any significant size, and this was only 22 individuals. Sample 18/ 21 contained very few shells but all were of shade - demanding species, including

154

HeUci gona fo pic1~da .

The r e sults from sample 15/21 (?18) are summar ized in Table I.,,.. The assemblage is dominated by shade - preferring taxa plus Pomatias elegans; open- country elements are represented by only two s pecimen s of Pupilla rrruscorum . A few cheek teeth of the bank vole Cl ethrionomys glareolus (Schreber), a common woodland species , we re al s o recovered from this sample. The she l ls analysed by Jackson (1950) appear to have been recovered by hand during excavation ; only large- shelled species are lis ted . He li cigona l apicida i s recorded from the I r on Age or RomanBritish levels bu t no indi c ation of the frequency of this , or other, species is g iven . No ecological conclusions can be drawn from this analysis.

Barkha le (Fi g .l; s ite no.2) This l arge enclosure, consisting of a single interrupted ditch and bank, i s situa ted on the northern edge of the South Downs (Grid Ref . SU 9761 26) overlookin g the valley of the Arun. The site has been damaged by ploughi ng. Depos i ts of Clay- with- flints are common in the ar ea a nd have pr obably influenced the preservation of environmental evidenc e (few snail shells were recovered from deposits at th e site). A small exc avation was made by Ryle in 1930 (Curwen 1954, p89) and was followed by th e mo r·e· extensive work by Seton- Williams in 1959 (Clip s on 1976) and Leach in 1978 (Leach 1979) . Samples of material fr om t he dit ch e xcava ted by Mr. Leach were made available for ana lys is and t hose from the lowes t three leve ls of the ditch were examined f or land- s nail s. On ly s ample 3, fr om the layer above the p r imary f ill , contained any shells (a mere 23 specimens). The summarized data ar e pres ented in Table 4 . All the spe cies recovered were either s hade- pref e rring or ecologically compatible catholic forms.

Whitehawk (F ig. l : s ite no . 4) Thi s enc losure is situ a ted on the southern edge of the South Downs (Gr id Re f . TQ 330048) . The site consists of four rings of causewayed banks and di t che s which have been severely damaged by ploughing . Exc ava tions in the ditche s in the 1930's (Williamson 1930; Curwen 1934, 1936) produced s amples of land- snails which were studied by Kennar d and Woo dward (1930) and by Kennard (1934, 1936) . No environmental wo r k has since been don e at this site-, The a s semblage s studied by Ke nnard and Woodwar d contain some specimen s which we r e collect ed by hand during excavation, and the results are publi s hed in onl y semi - quantitative form, They reveal a strong element of shade- pr efer ring species in the Neolithic assemblages . These workers interpret the assemblages in climatic terms, but damp woodland and scr ub habitats are also inferred (Kennard 1934 , pl30). Kennard (1936 , p91) notes th a t nearly half of the species recorded no longer l i ve on the Down s. Bo t h wo r kers comment upon the large size of specimens of Cepaea nemora lis and Arianta arbustorum and upon the abundance of t his l a tter species, and of Cepaea hortensis, which are usually associated with moiste r mic r oenvironments than can usually be found on the high Downs today.

155

TABLE 4 Represen ta t i on of ecological groups of land snails at Combe Hill and Barkhale (A) Percen t a ge f requencies Ecolo gic a l gr oup

Combe Hill 15/ 21 (?18)

Barkhale ditch 3

Shade - loving

36 . 4

78 . 3

Pomatias elegans

22 .7

0

Catholic

31. 8

21. 7

Open- country

9. 1

Numb er of s pec i mens

22

0

23

(B) Numbe r of taxa Ecolo gical group

Combe Hill 15/21 (?18)

Barkhale ditch 3

Shade- lov ing

5

5

Pomatias elegans

1

0

Catholic

3

2

Open- count ry

1

0

10

7

Total taxa

DISCUSSION Some of t he palae oecological interpretations of fe red above may seem t o be r ather naive; no allowance appears to have been made for macroenvironmental factors such as climate orfo.r local factors relat ing to microha bi t ats or taphonomic processes. In addition, differences in the rep res entation of species and ecological groups have been treated as if they h ave a high degree of statistical validity. In this dis cussi on I inte nd t o explo r e such al ternat i ve explanations fo r the observed p atte r ns in the da t a . Isaac (1981) has suggested that all a r chaeolo gi cal data should be subjected to the rigorous testing of multiple hyp o t he se s; in t he par agraphs below I examine a number of different , but no t necessaril y mutually exclusive , hypotheses relating to the data .

156

As a footnote I might add that this procedure is also undertaken for its heuristic value, i n response to enquiries from (mainly) palae obotanical colleagues regarding the problems involved in the interpretation of assemblages of land- snails. The proceedings of this conference are likely to be read by many palaeobotanists, some of whom may find this discussion usef ul; I would be delighted to hear of other hypotheses which may occur to readers.

Climatic factors The papers by Kennard and Woodward and by Kennard (op. cit.) emphasize the possible importance of climate in ·determining the compos ition of land-snail faunas in the Neolithic period. Other work by these authors on snails from the Neolithic flint mines of Sussex (cited by Evans and Jone s 1981) led them to the similar conclusion that the climate in the Neolithic was wetter than the present, causing a rise in the water table and much damper ground conditions . Evans (197 2, pp6- 10) and Evans and Jones (1981) have admirably reviewed this climatic hypothesis and conclude (Evans and Jones 1981, plll) that changes in mollusc as semblages "may be related as much to deforestation and other processes of human origin as to climate". For the purposes of environmental analysis, most of the British land- snails can be conveniently classed into one of a number of ecol ogical groups. The composition of the woodland group is rather diff icult to define (e . g. Evans 1972, ppl94- 196; Evans and Jones 1973; Came r on and Morgan- Huws 1975; Cameron 1978) because of the varied responses of the members of this group to diverse ecological factors. Woodlands in southern England are relatively damp and humid places but t he simple equation of woodland snails with damp habitats (whether due to lo cal environments or to general climate) does not hold . Many 'woodland' s pecies occur also in rather dry and exposed places, The woodland ecosystem is a complex one in terms of microclimate and spatial and trophic diversity . Some taxa, such as Arianta and Cepaea horten.sis , appear to be moisture- demanding and may be abundant in damp habitats outside woodland. Others, such as Pomatias elegans, may be limited by t emperature, particularly cold winter temperatures (Kerney 1968). Thi s species is classed as a xerophile in France (Germain 1930, cited by Evans 197 2, pl33) and may occur in dry but warm habit ats in sou the rn Britain. The more mesic microclimates of woodlands 1n South East Bri tain may explain the high frequency of occurrence of P. elegan.s in these habitats . Deciduous woodland in southern Britain tends to have high biological productivity and a large biomass of decomposer or,ganisms. Many species of land- snails are to be found in association with decaying plant materials under leaf litter on the woodland floor; these include Carychium~ Discus and the predatory zonitids. These taxa may also be found in de ad plant material at the base of tussocky grasses in nonwoodland habitats, Many woodland taxa, such as Acanthinula, Helicigona and the clausiliids , are rupestr al (i . e. are commonly found on tree trunks and other vertical surfaces), although some, particularly the clausiliids, may be found on dry walls outside woodland. Clearly it is an oversimplification to view the taxonomically and physiologically diverse assemblage of woodland snails as being ecologically dependent upon one over-riding factor such as dampness.

157

Different species respond in a range of ways either to changes in various individual key factors in the environment , or, more usually, to changes in combinations of them, One may reasonably infer a woodland habitat, as opposed to a damper climate, when species which variously require the particular moisture, temperature, trophic and spatial characteristics associated with woodland habitats occur in the same assemblage. The particular assemblages discussed in this paper include all of the 'woodland' taxa discussed in the preceding two paragraphs as well as other ecologically compatible species; it is felt possible to reject climate as a key factor in their interpretation, This is not to suggest that the climate in the Neolithic was similar to that of today, only that there is no evidence.from these assemb lages to permit any deductions about climate,

Local factors Even if climatic factors are n0.t important, we may consider, given that most land-snails are stenotopic, that the assemblages of snails reflect very local ecological factors rather than broad habitat cat egories such as woodland. A number of hypotheses is possible; each of these is discussed below. (A) Scrub habitats: These can support many of the species commonly found in woodland habitats but the open ground or grassland between the bushes also tends to support an abundance of open-country taxa, It is unlikely that the Neolithic assemblages of snails discussed here represent scrub habit ats. (B) Ditch microenvironrnents: Most of the assemblages were extracted from ditch sediments; ditches can provide many of the microclimatic parameters required by woodland snails and once they become overgrown with vegetation will provide for their trophic and spatial needs as well, The most inter esting proposition to consider is that the assemblages represent the microhabitats of ditches which occurred in open- country, If we exannne the snails extracted from ditches associated with archaeological sites constructed in open landscapes (as evidenced from the assemblages of molluscs in buried soils) we find that they are quite different from those discussed here. The buried soils under the Neolithic long barrow at South Street, under the Bronze Age round barr ows at Hemp Knoll and Roughridge Hill (all in Wiltshire) and under the Iron Age earthwork of Badbury Rings (in Dorset) have yielded assemb lages of land-snails characteristic of open, dry and predominantly grassland habitats. The assemblages of snails from the primary fills of the ditches associated with these monuments were very similar to those from the buried soils, with only a slightly higher representation of shade- preferring species (Evans 1972, pp257, 328, 332, 335, 337). The long barrow at Alfriston in Sussex (Thomas, in Drewett 1975) yielded small assemblages of land- snails but both the buried soil and the primary fill of the ditch contained open- country species, Such assemblages of snails contrast sharply with those reported here, yet all are from the primary fills of ditches. Only one buried

158

soil was available for analysis in the present study (at Offham Hill) and this contained an overwhelming abundance of shade - preferring species, as did the primary fill of the associated ditch. Although the ditch microenvironment may have favoured s ome taxa, there is no indication from the land- snails that · these enclosures were built in well - established open-country environments. (C) Relict faunas : Some of the interpretations given above suggested localized clearings in the woo dland , others more extensive clearings . It is possible that there was very extensive woodland clearance on the Downs early in th e Neolithic and that the assemblages reported here are relict woodland faunas persisting in the vicinity of the enclosures (this hypothesis is perhaps, on a priori grounds, unlikely, because relict faunas are more likely to persist in marginal situations away from the foci of human activity; it is, however, a possibility which must be consi dered). This interpretation may hold true for some of the sites (e .g. the Trundl e ) where a few open - country taxa appear in the assemblages from the primary fills of the ditches . In other cases, such as Bu ry Hill and Of fharn Hill, the hypothesis is unlikely because open- country taxa appear late in the sedimentary sequences of the ditches. It i s difficult t o reconcile the notion of widespread clearance in the Neolithic with t he interpretation of woodland regen eration at Offham Hill, and possibly at the Trundle and Bury Hill . (D) Anthropogenic imbalances: A dominant ecological factor associated with all of these enclos ures is man and his activi t ies . Evans and Jones (1981, plll) pointed out that the ecolo gi cal imb alances created by man may result in atypical snail faunas. This must be true fo r the assemblages extracted in the present study; the problem is to isolate the nature and degree of the effec t. To what extent could mari's act ivities have produced some convergence betwe en the assemblages of land- snails recovered from the enclosures and the faunas normally associated with woodland habitats? The possibility of environmental mimicry, by the creation of ditch micro habitats, has been discussed above. Some species of snails are very intolerant of human impact while othe r s seem to flourish in the hab itats created by man's activities. Many woodland species fall into the forme r group , a lthough none of the species rec orded in this study have been ci t ed as markedly anthro pophobic. Equally , none are part icularly synanthropic and some marked synanthropes, such as Trichia striolata, are either absent from , or rare in, the assemblages. It seems highly unlikely th at human activity alone could have created ecological conditions favourable to the particular assemblages of snails encountered in this study. (E) Local extinction: If the a ctivities of man were totally un fav ourable to the life of land- snails, the only shells available for incorporation into the primary silts of the ditches would be fossil remnants of earlier woodland faunas which could be eroded out of the soils . These ass emblages may therefore bear no relationship to the contemporary ecological setting of the sites .

159

This neat hypothesis falls on a number of grounds. First, as noted above, while few of the species recorded are synanthropes none are so drastically anthropophobic, Studies on other types of sites on t he Chalk, including those with much more evidence of intense human activity than is found at these enclosu r es (e. g, Bell 1977), have not revealed any tendency for snails to become locally extinct during phases of occupation or other use of the sites. At worst, human impact upon snail faunas leads to a drastic reduction of species diversity, which may favour some species because of the r educed competition, Even if this ecological outcome were likely, it is diff icult to see how the hypothesis could account for the complex sets of data from Offham Hill; how could the differences-between the assemb lages in the buried soils and the ditches be accounted for by mere mechanical erosion of old shells from the soil? (F) Removal of the turf: Evans (1972) has shown that land - snail assemblages may become stratified in calcareous soils, with those near the surface reflecting the most recent ecological conditions. Removal of soil containing these assemblages may give a misleading ecological pictu r e; this may result if an area is de-turfed prior to the construction of a monument, when removal of a grass turf may remove assemblages indicative of open- country conditions. Evans (1972) and Dimbleby and Evans (1974) discuss the possibility of turf - removal with regard to the differing palaeoecological inter pretations made for the Neolithic enclosures at Knap Hill and Windmill Hill in Wiltshire. The absence of a marked mull-humus horizon in the buried soil at Windmill Hill was taken to indicate the possibility of turf - removal. The land - snails from the buried soils at Windmill Hill (Evans 1972) and at Knap Hill (Sparks 1965) suggest woodland conditions. Dimbleby (Dimbleby and Evans 1974) made pollen analyses upon these soils and suggested the riresence of Corylus - dominated woodland at Knap Hill but open conditions at Windmill Hill, in t he Neolithic period. The evidence from Knap Hill may be taken to indicate a loc alized woodland clearing supporting mostly woodland snails but also some shade - intolerant plants and with enhanced flowering of Corylus at the woodland margins, There is no evidence for turf removal at Knap Hill and the palaeoenvironmental evidence does not require such an inference, The absence of a mull - humus horizon at Windmill Hill need not indicate removal of turf; continued activities of earthworms in the soil after burial could have reworked topsoil material into the overlying bank (see, for example, Evans 1972, p247; Jewell and Dimbleby 1966, p335). Nevertheless, the pollen data appear to be at variance with the snail assemblages. A possible reconciliation is that the site was constructed soon after the landscape had been fairly extensively cleared of woodland, certain pioneering opencountry plants (or at least their pollen) reached the cleared site quite early on but open- country snails did not arrive before the soil had been buried under the bank of the enclosure. As far as the present study is concerned, the only buried soil was at Offham Hill and contained an assemblage of woodland snails; the primary fills of the ditches contained similar assemblages (exact ly comparable results were obtained from the buried soil and the ditch

160

TABLE 5 Minimum numbers of individuals present in various ecological groups of land - snails at Offham Hill Outer bank buried soil

Ecological group

Outer ditch 4 3

Inner ditch 4 3

Shade - lovin g

15

42

Lil

42

64

Pomatias elegans

31

5

3

1

38

Catholic

11

7

7

3

22

3

0

0

0

5

Open- country

Chi - squared analyses, based upon 2x2 contingency tables with Yates' correction applied when any class has a value less than 10 (for critical values of see below):

x.2 ,

1. Outer ditch samples 3 and 4 do not differ significantly

2. Inn er ditch samples 3 and 4 : highly significant differences be t ween shade X Pomatias and shade X catholic comparisons; for shade X open comparison -x.2 (1) = 1. 73. 3. Outer ditch sample 4 and inner ditch sample 4 do not differ significantly 4. Outer ditch sample 3 and inner ditch sample 3: for shade X Pomatias, x2 (1) = 12.6; for shade X catholic, -X:-( 1) = 1.6; for shade X open,

x2 (1)

=

1 . 7.

·

5. Inner ditch samp l e 4 and the buried soil: highly significant differenc es between shade X Pomatias and shade X catholic; for the shade X open comparison , 1(_2 (1) = 4 . 3. 6.

Inner ditch sample 3 and the buried soil: the only notable diff erence i s between the categories shade X Pomatias, where 'X..2 (1) = 11. 6.

7. Other comparisons between outer ditch sample 4 and the buried soil and outer ditch sample 3 and the buried soil give results similar to those in (5) above. Critical va lues of chi - squared, with one degree of freedom, for probability levels of 5%, 1% , and 0.1% are 3.84, 6.63, and 10.83, resp ec t ively.

161

TABLE 6 Minimum numbers of individuals present in various ecological groups of land - snails at the Trundle

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3A

Sample 3

Sample 4

Shade- loving

0

6

61

18

4

Pomatias eZegans

5

15

22

17

6

Catholic

25

33

52

41

10

Open- country

27

31

18

9

3

Ecological group

Chi - squared analyses (for details of analyses and critical values of X,,2 see Table 5):

1.

There are no significant differences between samples 1 and 2

2.

Samples 1 and 3A: shade X Pomatias, -x.2 (1) = 8 . 8; shade X catho-lic, 5(1) = 23.9; shade X open, ;(_2 (1) = 43.l; and Pomatias X open, X (1) = 10.1.

3.

Samples 2 and 3A: shade X Pomatias, 5(1): 12.9; shade X cathol ic, x:_2(1) = 16.0; and shade X open,;( (1) - 36,0,

4.

Samples 2 and 3: shade X Pomatias, x~l) = 1.9; shade X catholic, 2.1; shade X open, ·x._2(1) = 14.9; and Pomatias X open,

-x.2 (1)

-x,2 (1) = 6. 0. 5.

Samples 3A and 3: shade X Pomatias, -x.2 (1) = 5.4; shade X catholic, x_2 (1) = 8.6; and shade X open, ;(,.2(1) = 0.7 .

6.

There are no significant differences between samples 3 and 4

162

at Knap Hill (Sparks 1965)) . The absence of open- countr y elemen t s from man y o f the a s semblage s ex t r acted f r om the primary fills of the enclosure d i tches d i scussed here argues against the hypothesis that the enclosur es wer e constructed in an open- gr as s land habitat with loc alized turf - removal .

Small size of samples The assemblages discussed in this paper are rather small and it is possible that the di f fer ences in t he representation of different ecological groups a r e not statistically significant. Small sample size may also me an that the composition of the extracted assemblages does not truly r eflect the composition of the thanatocoenoses within the various contex ts . The first proposition ca n easily be tested . Table 5 shows a number of s t atistical tests on the numerical representation of ecol ogical groups in different contexts at Offham Hill. The results are self - explanatory and only a few points need to be made here . Open country speci es are significantly under- represented in all of the samples and i n some int e r - context comparisons (e . g. between samples 3 and 4 of the inner ditch) their abundance is not significantly different f r om zero! Obviously , although statistically insignificant, the r esult s may s till have biological and ecological significance . Otherwise, many of the diffe r ences in representation which form the basis fo r the inte r pretation of the history of the site (given above) are highly s ign if icant. Simi lar ana lyses were not made for the data from Bury Hill ; in s pection of Table 2 shows that the differences be tween s ampl e 2 a nd samples 3 and 4 (but not between samples 3 and 4) are obvious l y hi ghl y significant . Analyses f or the data from the Trundle are s hown in Table 6. Again , the critical differences upon which the e colo gic a l inte rpre ta t ions have been bas ed are all statistically s ign if ic ant. How rep r esentative are t he extracted assemblages of the preserved death assemblages and also of the original faunas? We can never know the true an swer to the last part of this question because so many factors cau s ing distortion a r e beyond our control . We can hope to get a r eliable es timate of the death assemblage (from which we may infer the ori g inal fauna , or faunas) by eliminating procedural bias; one remedy is to obtain a sample sufficiently large to give a fair degree of c onfidence in the data. The samples discussed here are generally s ma ll (althoL1gh dif f erences between them are often statistically s i gn if ica nt; it is also worth pointing out that they are all ecologi ca ll y cons i s t ent and this is unlikely to be entirely fortuit ous) but one la r ge sample from Offham Hill suggests that they need not be too biased . This large sample derives from the primary silts of the outer dit ch and , although not fully analysed, contains more than 800 specime ns of snails . Only two specimens of open-country species (one each of Vertigo pygmaea and PupiUa muscoY'Wll) occur in the whol e a ss emblage ; the remainder are a s ye t unquantified but con sist entirely of shade - loving and catholic species.

Wood land en vi 1~onmen ts Having considered alternative hypotheses and rejected some, cast serious doubt upon the validity of other s and ·tentatively accepted

163

that a few could account for the results obtained from some of the sites, we ret urn to the original hypothesis. The general weight of the evidence from the Sussex enclosures suggests woodland clearance prior to, bu t not long before, their construction. In some cases this clearance appears to be very local and perhaps temporary, done, in fact, for the sole purpose of constructing the enclosure. In other cases the clearance may have been more widesp read, while some of the enclosures (Comb e Hill, Barkhale and Whitehawk) produced little detailed information save that they were built soon after clearance , but the rel at iv e extent of this clearance is unknown. Althou gh none of the assemblage s gave evidence regarding the exact statu s and structure of the prehistoric woodland, there is no evidence, such as the presence of relict open- country assemblages, to suggest that the woodland was of secondary, regenerated, type. Snail species , unlike many species of insects (Girling, this volume p 135), are not usual ly ass ociated with particular species of trees, or other plants , but we may tentatively suggest that the cleared woodland was of primary type . Interpretation of land- snail assemblages from Neo lithic flint mines in Sussex (Evans and Jones 1981) are very similar to those pre s en ted h e r e , with localized clearings being obliterated by later woodland regeneration. Similar conclusions were reached by Thorley (1981), whose palynological studies were discussed in the introduction to t his paper . Together, these sources produce a picture of the South Downs being wooded in pre - Neolithic times, undergoing a mosaic of clearance in the Neolithic (some extensive, some localized; some permanent, s ome tempora ry ) and being subjected to much more extensive and permanent clearance in the Bronze Age, The results also cast some light upon the local ecological setting of the Sussex Neolithic enclosures , although they are slightly different for the various sites . All of the sites are located near to the edge of the high Chalk looking either north, south, or across a river valley . Only a relatively local amount of clearance would suff ice to give a superb view from each site. The evidence from Offham Hill and Bury Hill suggests a localized clearance, that from the Trundle indicating rather;more extensive tracts of cleared land al though there was evidence of regeneration of woodland or scrub at this site . We may note in passing that these results parallel to a remarkable degree those from the Wiltshire enclosures. Apart from t he significance that these results may have for the interpretat ion o f enc los ures and land - use in the Neolithic on the South Downs , a topic which cannot be considered here (Thomas, in prep aration), they raise a number of other ecological questions. These relate to the size of the clearings, whether they were temporary or permanent and whether the woodland around these clearings was itself extensive or just localized . That therewere areas of open grassland on the Chalk in Neolithic times is revealed by studies on land-snails from soils beneath long barrows (Evans 1971, 1972; Thomas, in Drewett 1975), but we have no c lear picture of the relative amounts of wood land and open- country on the downlands at various times in the Neo lithic and ·later. When we consider how localized the clearings might have been, or how localized was the woodland around them, the land- snails can only offer a few clue s. We do not know how extensive or dense woodland

164

tracts have t o be in order to constitute an effective barrier to the dispersal of open"-country snails. Another unknovm i s the time - lag for open- country species ta,establish populations in accessible but recently cleared areas. While various biogeographical models, such a s those developed for both true islands and habitat islands (e.g. MacArthur and Wilson 1967), may help us to visualize the constrain t s and possib ilities, in terms of source areas, size of target areas, presence of stepping stones, etc., only field data can provide the necessary quantitative answers. It may be of some relevance to note here that the few open- country species which managed to effect early colonization of the clearings around the Sussex enclosures are all regarded as pioneer species (they are PupiZZa muscorum, VaZZonia costata and Vertigo pygmaea). All char acteristically exploit newly opened areas of land before other opencountry species; these latter are represented in the present study by VaZZonia excentrica and HeliceZZa itaZa, which occur only in contexts associated with the postulated later extensive clearances. There are rare records of the three pioneer species listed above living in woodland habitats and it is not improbable that they may have been minor elements of the Post-glacial woodland f auna on the Chalk. If so, these species would have been 'on hand' to exploit openings in the woodland, such as a man-made clearing, and we may not even need to postulate colonization from open habitats. This is all rather speculative but there is a possibility that the clearings could have been very local and surrounded by quite ex tensive tracts of woodland.

CONCLUSIONS Evidence from the analysis of land- snails has confirmed the former existence of woodland on the Chalk downlands (e.g. Kerney et al . 1964; Evans 1972). These studies clearly document the beginnings of woodland clearance in the Neoli t hic and the expansion of open- country habitats since then, This study of Neolithic enclosures has produced similar evidence for such habitats on the South Downs and they correlate well with those of Evans and Jones (1981) and Thorley (1981) in showing Neolithic clearance followed by woodland regeneration with more extensive and permanent clearance occurring later (perhaps in the Bronze Age). Barker and W~bley (1978) raised the possibility that the Chalk areas were effectively cleared of what woodland they might have had by Neolithic times. This appears to be untrue. Their model of Neo lithic enclosures as the centres of agricultural exploitation terr itories cannot easily be applied to the Sussex enclosures, where the evidence suggests that at least some were constructed in quite local ized clearings within woodland, We may even question whether these particular enclosures were central to any terr i tories whi'ch may have existed in Neolithic Sussex. Certainly any functional or economic interpretation of them will have to consider the implications of the palaeoenvironmental evidence (Thomas, in preparation). In conclusion, I would like to reflect upon the first samples of ditch materials which I extracted for this study. I had very little confidence that ·any useful results would be obtaimed . Palynologists

165

quite rightly despise ditch contexts (Dimbleby 1976) but for the pres ent work, with severe ly plough- damaged sites, ditches were the only surviving contexts in which palaeoenvironmental evidence was likely to be ~reserved. The. results appear t o justify the effort and perhaps vindica te ditch samples to some extent, In spite of the extra problems of their interpretation, the assemblages of snails gave information about t he ecology of the sites both during and after their use; this is s omething that assemblages from buried soils cannot do,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of the Sussex Archaeological Field Unit, and in particular feter Drewett, Owen Bedwin and Caroline Cartwright, for providing encouragement , sites and samples . Ms. Cartwright provided invaluable help with the laboratory extraction of many of the samples.

REFERENCES Barker, G. and Webley, D. 1978 'Causewayed camps and Early Neolithic economie s in Central Southern En~land.' Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 44, ppl61 - 186 . Bedwin, 0 .

1980

'Bu ry Hill .'

Current Archaeology No.73 , pp45 - 47.

Bedwin, 0 . 1981 ' Excavations at the Neolithic enclosure on Bury Hill , Houghton, W. Sussex 1979.' Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 47, pp69 - 86. Bell, M. 1977 'Excavations at Bishops tone.' Collect ions 115, ppl - 299 .

Sussex Archaeological

Bell, M. 1981 'Valley sediments and environmental change.' In Jones , M. an d Dimbleby , G. (eds . ) The Environment of Man: the Iron Age t o . the Anglo - Saxon Period . (Oxford : British Archaeol ogical Repo rts , British Series, 87) , pp75 - 91. Bonny, A.P. 1978 'The effect of pollen recruitment processes on pollen d istributi on over the sediment surface of a small lake in Cumb ria. 1 Journal of Ecology 66, pp385 - L1l6. Cameron, R.A .D. 1978 'Interpreting buried land - snail assemblages from archaeological sites - problems and progress.' In Brothwell, D.R. , Thomas , K. D. and Glutton- Brock , J. (eds.) Research Problems in Zooarchaeology. (London : University, Institute of Archaeology Occasional Publication 3) , ppl9 -2 3. Cameron, R.A .D. and Morgan- Huws, D.I . 1975 'Snail faunas in the early stages of a chalk grassland succession.' Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 7, pp215 - 229. Clipson, J . 1976 Excavations at the Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure at Barkhale (by Dr. Seton- Williams). (London: University,

166

I

Institute of Archaeology, unpublished M.A. Dissertation) . Connah, G. 1965 'Excava t ions at Knap Hi ll, Alton Priors, 1961. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural His t ory Magazine 60, ppl - 23.

1

Curwen, E. C. 1929 'Excavations in the Trundle, Goodwood, 1928, Sussex Archaeological Collections 70, pp33-85,

1

Cu rwen , E., C ., 19 31 'Excavations in the Trundle. Second season, 1930.' Sussex Archaeological Collections 72, ppl00- 149. Curwen, E.C. 1934 'Excavations in Whitehawk Neolithic Camp, Brighton, 1932-3. 1 Antiquaries Journal 14, pp99 - 133. Curwen, E.C. 1936 season, 1935 . 1

'Excavations in Whitehawk Camp, Brighton. Third Sussex Archaeological Collections 77, pp60- 92.

Curwen, E.C. 1954 Methuen).,

Archaeology of Sussex.

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Dimbleby, G.W., 1976 'A review of pollen analysis of archaeological deposits. 1 In Davidson, D. A., and Shackley, M.L. (eds.) Geoarchaeology. (London: Duckworth), pp34 7-354 . Dimbleby, G.W. and Evans, J.G. 19 7L1 'Pollen and land - snail analysis of calcareous soils . 1 Journal of Archaeological Science 1, ppll 7-133. Drewett, P.,T, ., 1975 'The excavation of an oval burial mound of the third millenri±'tlm be at Alfriston, East Sussex, 1974.' Pr oceedings of the Prehistoric Society 41, ppll9 - 152. Drewett, P.,L. 1977 'The excavation of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Offham Hill, East Sussex, 1976. 1 Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 43, pp20l - 241 . Drewett, P.L . 1978 'Neolithic Sussex.' In Dr ewett, P.L. (ed.) Archaeology in Sussex to A.D. 1500. (London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 29), pp23-29. Drewett, P.L. and Bedwi n, O.R. 1981 'Note on radiocarbon dates from Neolithic enclosures in Sussex. 1 In Bedwin, O. 'Excavations a t the Neolithic enclosure on Bury Hill, Hough t on, W. Sussex 1979. 1 Proceedings of t he Prehistoric Society 47, p86. Edwards, K,J., 1979 'Palynological and t emporal infeuence in the context of prehistory, with special reference to the evidence from lake and peat deposits.' Journal of Archaeological Science 6, pp255 - 270. Evans, J.G. 1968 'Changes in the composition of land molluscan populations in nor th Wiltshire during the last 5000 years.' Sympo s ia of the Zoological Society of London 22, pp 293 - 317, Evans, J.G . 1971 'Habitat change on the calcareous soils of Britain: the impact of Neolithic man.' In Simpson, D.D.A . (ed . ) Economy

16 7

and Settlement in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Bri t ain and Europe. (Leicester: Leicester University Press), pp27 - 73. Evans, J.G,

1972

Land Snails in Archaeology.

(London: Seminar Press).

Evans, J.G, 1978 'Commen t ' (upon the paper by Barker and Webley 1978, op.cit.) Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 44, ppl85-186. Evans, J.G. and Jones, H. 1973 'Subfossil and modern land-snail faunas from rock-rubble habitats. 1 Journal of Conchology 28, pplOJ-129., Evans, J .G. and Jones, H. 1981 1 Subfossil land - snail faunas from Grimes Graves and other Neolithic flint mines.' In Mercer, R. J. Grimes Graves, Norfolk: Excavations 1971- 72. Volume 1. (London: H.M.S.6.), ppl04-lll. Isaac, G.L. 1981 'Archaeological tests of alternative models of early hominid behaviour: excavation and experiment. 1 Philosophical 1-'ran,silctions of the Royal Society of London, B 292, ppl77 - 188. Jackson, J.W. 1950 'Animal bones and shells. 1 In Musson, R. 'An excavation at Combe Hill near Eastbourne, August 1949.' Sussex Archaeological Collections 89, ppll4-115, Jacobi, R. 1978 'The Mesolithic of Sussex,' In Drewett, P .L. (ed,) Archaeology in Sussex to A.D. 1500. (London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 29), ppl5 - 22. Jewell, P.A. and Dimbleby, G.W. 1966 'The experimental earthwork on Overton Down , Wiltshire, England: the first four years,' Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 32, pp313 - 342. Kennard, A.S. 193Lr 'Report on the Mollusca. 1 In Curwen, E. G. 1 Excavations in Whitehawk Neolithic Camp, Brighton, 1932 - 3.' Antiquaries .Journal 14, ppl29 - l30. Kennard, A.S. 1936 'The Mollusca,' In Curwen, E.G. in Whitehawk Camp, Brighton, third season 1935. 1 Archaeological Collections 77, pp90-92.

'Excavations Sussex

Kennard, A.S. and Woodward, B.B. 1929 'The Mollusca.' In Curwen, E.C. 'Excavations in the Trundle, Goodwood, 1928.' Sussex Archaeo1ogkal~ol1~ns 70, pp69 - 70. Kennard, A.S. and Woodward, B.B. 1930 'The Mollusca.' In Williamson, R.P.R. 'Excavations in Whitehawk Neolithic Camp, near Brighton.' Sussex Archaeological Collections 71, pp83 - 85. Kerney, M.P. 1963 'Late - glacial deposits on the Chalk of south- east England.' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 24~, pp203 - 254. 'Br~ta~n's fa.una of land Mollusca and its relation . . 1968 _ Kerney, MP to the Post - glacial thermal optimum,' Symposia of the Zoological Society of London 22, pp273 - 291. L

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Kerney, M. P., Brovn1, E. H. and Chandler, T . J . 1964 'The Late- glacial and Post - glacial hi s tory of t he Chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent . 1 Ph ilo sophi cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 248, ppl35 - 204. Kerney, M. P ., Preece, R. C. and Turner, C. 1980 'Molluscan and plant biostratigr aphy of Late Devensian and Flandrian deposits in Kent.' Philosoph i cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 291, ppl - L13. Leach , P .E. 1979 'Excavation at the Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Barkhale, West Sussex. 1 University of London Institute of Archaeolo gy Bulletin 16 , pp20- 23 . Limbrey, S. 1975 Pres s ) .

Soil Science and Archaeology.

(London: Academic

MacArthu r, R.H. and Wilson, E,0. 1967 The Theory of Island Biogeography . (Pri nceton : University Press) . Mellars, P. 1976 'Fire ecology, animal populations and man : a study of s ome ecological relationships in prehistory.' Proceed ings of the Pr ehisto ri c Society 42, ppl5 - 45. Mellars, P. and Reinhardt, S.C. 1978 'Patterns of Mesolithic land use in Southern England : a geological perspective . 1 In Mellars , P. (ed . ) The Early Post - glacial Settlement of Northern Europe . (London : Duckworth), pp 24 3-293 . Musson, R, 1950 'An excavation at Combe Hill camp near Eastbourne, August 19 49. ' Sussex Archaeological Collections 89, pplOS - 116. Orme, B.

1981

Anthropology for Archaeologists.

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Renfrew, C. 1973 'Monuments, mobilisation and social organisation in Neolithic Wessex.' In Renfrew, C. (ed . ) The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in Prehistory . (London: Duckworth), pp539 - 55 8. Sheldon, J. 1978 'The environmental background.' In Drewett, P . L. (ed.) Ar chaeology in Sussex to A. D. 1500 . (London: Council for Briti sh Archaeology Research Report 29), pp3- 7 . Sparks , B. W. 1965 'Mollusca . ' In Connah, G. 'Exc avations at Knap Hill , Al ton Pri ors , 1961 .' Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 60, ppl9 - 20 . Thomas, K.D, 1977 'The 1.and Mollusca from the enclosure on Offham Hill . ' In Drewett, P . L. 'The excavation of of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Offham Hill, East Sussex, 1976 . ' Proceedings of the Preh is toric So ci ety 43 , pp234 - 239 . Thomas, IZ.D. 1981 'The land mollusca . ' in Bedwin, 0, 'Excavations at the Neolithic enclosure on Bury Hill , Houghton, W. Sussex 1979 .' Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 47, pp84- 85.

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Thorley, A. 1981 'Pollen analytical evidence relating to the vegetation history of the Chalk.' Journal of Biogeography 8, pp93-106. Whittle, A. 1977 'Earlier Neolithic enclosures in north-west Europe.' Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 43, pp329 - 348. Williamson, R.P.R. 1930 'Excavations in Whitehawk Neolithic camp, near Brighton.' Sussex Archaeological Collections 71, pp57 - 96. Wilson, D.R . 1975 'Causewayed camps' and 'interrupted ditch systems'. Antiquity 49, ppl78- 186.

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THE AVON GORGE AND LEIGH WOODS Oliver Rackham

The conference at which these pape r s were presented was held in Burwalls House on the edge of the Avon Gorge by the city of Bristol (Fig . l). The Gorge is a place of exceptional interest for the archaeology of vegetation, and an impromptu excursion was arranged to it. It i .llust r ates the gorge as refugium, the different management of woodland and wood - pasture, and the effects of long-term grazing and of the cessation of graz ing on the composition of a community of trees. All these aspect s have parallels in my paper on the native vegetation of Greece. THE RARE PLANTS OF THE AVON GORGE The precipitous limestone and sandstone cliffs of the Gorge plunge 300 ft (100 m) to the tidal Avon estuary . The plateau through which the Go rg e cuts is wooded on the west side, where Leigh Woods lie on ma inly acid s oils to t he north of Burwalls House. A side ravine , Ni gh ti ngale Valley (anciently Stokeleigh Coombe or Slade) , runs s t e eply down between limestone outcrops and cliffs to join the

(c: opp i ce)

Fig.l.

Avon Gorge and Leigh Woods.

171

Hatched areas are now built-up.

main gorge . The headlands on either side of this ravine are crowned by Iron Age hillforts: Stokeleigh Camp, still intact, and Burwalls, whose land scaped remains surround Burwalls House. A third hillfort, Clifton Camp, lies across the Avon . This area has been famous f or rare plants for 450 years (Turner 156 2; White 1912 ; Ratcliffe 1977) . It has two species of whitebeam tree (Sorbus bristoliensis and S. wilmottiana) found nowhere else in the wo r ld and three more (S . eminens, S. porrigentiformis_, and S. anglica) which are endemic to the Britis h Isles. It is the only native locality in Great Britain or Ireland for the southern European AUium sphaerocepha lon and Arabi s stricta. Other rare and very local plants include Carex humilis, C. digitata, Cerastium pumiZum , Gastridium

vent:ricosum, Geranium sanguineum , Hornungia petraea, Po ten ti l la tab ernaemon tani , Scilla autumnalis, Trinia glauca, Veronica spicata subspecies hybrida, and the native lime -tre e Tilia cordata . With this concentration of rarities the Avon Gorge is the best parallel in England to the cliff r efugia of Greece . As in Greece, protection from grazing has been important for t he survival of some of the species, notably the lime i For many of the rare plants, pro tection from shade has probably been more important : the rocks of the Avon Gorge have enabled light - re quiring herbs and small trees to survive times when the rest of England has been blanketed by trees (Pigott and Walters 1954). LEIGH WOOD S

Present vege ta t ion The pl ateau west of the Gorge has two kinds of woodland which differ in structure and species , The northern part, in the parish of Abbot' s Leigh, is a coppice - wood in which the pr edominant species is lime (Tilia cordata ) followed by ash, oak and hazel, It has many character istics of ancient woodland (Rackham 1976, 1980) , including giant coppice st ools and typical plants such as service-tr ee (Sorbus torminalis) , lily- of - the- valley (ConvaUaria majalis) , and lime itself. Among the oaks, ~/4ercus petraea outnumbers Q.robur, Although partly destroyed by recent replanting it is a good example of the ancient woods of North Somerset; t here can be little doubt that it is directly derived from the prehistoric wildwood of the area. The southern part of the pl ateau around Stokeleigh Camp, together with Nightingale Valley, is in Long Ashton parish. It has a more complex woodland structure including three categories of trees: 1 . Ancient coppice- stools of Tilia cordata, a handful of which are scattered here and there on cliff ledges or projecting outcrops of rock. (Other old lime - trees grow in inaccessible places on cliffs, including some be low Burwalls Hou se ) . 2. Old pollards, estimated at from 200 to 400 years old, last pollarded in the mid·- nineteenth century. Some hundreds of these are scattered over the pl ateau and less steep slopes. The great majority are oak (Q. robUl"), but I have noted four limes, one wych- elm , and one Q. petraea. Many of the oaks have dead outer branches where younger trees have competed with them. Scattered pollards surviving in the

172

gardens of Bunmlls House and its neighbour s show that they extended further so uth be fo re this area was built up, 3. Maiden trees ( i.e. neithe r pollards nor coppice). These are of various ag es but none old er than the mid-nineteenth century. They are ash and wych- elm. There are no oaks; limes are very few and grow only immediat e ly next to ancient lime stools or in old quarries . The boundary between the northern plateau (coppice) and the southern plateau (pollards and maiden s ) is very abrupt . It is approximately marked by an old wall on the Long Ashton- Abbot's Leigh parish boundary. (Curiously, the wal 1 does not· exactly correspond to the cha ng e in woodland structure).

Historical, documents Many record s have been published (Way 1913), for the Long Ashton part going ba ck to c. AD 1260 and for the Abbot's Leigh part to AD 1331 . Re f erences to hillfort s and other identifiable features estab lish the topography. In the Middle Ages the wooded area was a little greater than it is now. The Abbot's Leigh part belonged to the monks of Leigh Abbey and was apparently a normal wood (Rackham 1976). Regular woodcutting is mentioned i n the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries (Sabin 1960) . The Long Ashton part was also wooded but had pasturage as well as trees; it was a wood - pasture common, in which the pasture belonged to commoners but t he trees growing in the pasture belonged to a private landowne r. This arrangement i s mentioned in AD 1331 - 3 and in l ater cen turies. West of Burwalls the.re was some heathland. The tree s evidently remained ro ughly in balance with the grazing and were the subject of regular woodcutting; a lease of AD 1667 and a woodsale of AD 1788 mention both unde rwood and timber. A document of AD 1799 refers to some uncer tainty about the p aris h boundary (cf. the discrepancy between the wall and the change of woodland structure). By the early nineteenth century Nightingale Valley was mainly grassland and was pastured ; the first edition Ordnance Survey map (1817) cl early di ff erentiates t he wood - pasture from Abbot's Leigh woods. Shortly afterwards the grazing rights in Long Ashton were evidently s upp resse d : t her e are reports of enclosure in the 1820's and of pro tests resu lting from the landowner interfering with public access in t h e 1840's. In 1865 the Long Ashton land fell into the hands of developers who built houses , including Burwalls House, on its southern part . Nightingale Valley and Stokeleigh Camp were saved by public protest from a like fate and were later given to the National Trust as a public open space.

Interpretation (Fi g.2 ) The ecological properties of the principal trees are given in Rackham (1980) . Lime is likely to have been the dominant species of the wildwood in this area. It is very sensitive to grazing (as in Greece); it behave s as a relict tree, being most reluctant to invade new sites . Oak tastes nasty and is resistant to grazing, but the two oak speci es differ in other respects. Q. petraea is a tree of ancient woods on acid soils; it too is a relict of wildwood. Q. robur,

173

Wildwood (lime with hazel, Quercus petraea, etc,)

woodcrting

Mixed lime coppice- w ~ .

grazing and wood - pasture

~ (Q. robur) grarand

Oak pollards in

inaccessible woodcutting, no grazing

not grazing

+

Ash-Elmwood

I

Elm Disease

!

Limes on cliff edges

Fig.2.

Mixed lime coppice- wood

Ashwood with elm regrowth and increasing sycamore

Summary of changes in Stoke- Leigh Woods

174

while occurring in ancient woods, also readily colonizes newly- available ground including wood-pasture, though not normally on limestone soils. Ash and wych-elm are very edible trees and colonize easily, especially on limestone soils, The original wildwood was probably of lime with some oak and hazel and occasional ash, elm, etc. In Abbot's Leigh this was made into a coppice-wood from which the monks and their successors excluded grazing animals, The wood was permanent and retains its composition to this day. In Long Ashton events took a different course for the legal reason that there were rights of pasture which the landowner had no power to abolish. Originally the trees were probably coppiced, but the livestock destroyed the limes and other edible underwood by eating their regrowth, except for a few stools that survived out of reach on rocks and ledges. Such new trees as grew up under grazing were mainly robur oaks, whose unpalatability and colonizing power outweighed the unsuitability of the limestone soils in Nightingale Valley. Eventually (at the latest in the sixteenth century) the owner of the trees decided to abandon coppicing in favour of the normal wood-pasture practice of pollarding, by which the oaks (and the few surviving accessible limes, etc.) were maintained as a selfrenewing source of wood, When grazing was suppressed in the nineteenth century the Long Ashton part reverted to woodland: young trees grew up in the grassland and around the pol lards. But the new wood was not the same as the original wildwood or the coppice- wood, for lime and petraea oak do not retun1 to land made available by cessation of grazing. Nor were the young trees d2scendants of the pollards themselves, for robur oak does not easily colonize limestone soils unless it has grazing to keep down its competitors. Instead the new trees were ash and wych- elm, the usual formers of secondary woodland on these soils (e.g. in the Mendips; for a Derbyshire parallel see Merton 1970), Their rapid growth over topped the oak pollards and killed their branches. Since 1976 a further chapter in the story has begun with an epidemic of Dutch Elm Disease , Most of the elms have now been felled but the roots remain alive, Their places are now occupied by elm coppice shoots and saplings of a new generation of ash; but sycamore, derived probably from trees planted in nineteenth-century gardens, is invading, The Nature Conservancy Council has made attempts to prevent the spread of this and other undesirable exotic trees, but unless this policy is successful sycamore is likely to be co- dominant in the wood land of the future, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indeb t ed to Mr. Clive Lovatt for introducing me to Leigh Woods, for drawing my attention to the written evidence, and for helpful comments on this text. REFERENCES Merton, L.F.H. 1970 'The history and status of the woodlands of the Derbyshire limestone.' Journal of Ecology 58, pp723 - 744.

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Pigott, C.D . and Walters, S.M. 1954 'On the interpretation of the discontinuous distributions shown by certain British species of open habi tats, 1 Journal of Ecology 42, pp95 - 116. Rackham, 0 . 1976 (London : Dent).

Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape

Rackham, 0 . 1980 Uses in England

Ancient Woodland: Its History, Vegetation and (London : Edward Arnold).

Ratcliffe , D.A . 1977 University Press) . Sabin, A. Bristol

A Nature Conservation Review

(Cambridge:

1960 Some Manorial Accounts of St. Augustine's Abbey, (Bristol : Bristol Record Society) .

Turner , W. 1562 A. Birckman) .

The Second Part of Vuilliam Turners Herball

(Koln :

Way, L. J.U . 1913 'An account of the Leigh Woods, in the parish of Long Ashton , county of Somerset,' Transactions Bristol and Gloucestershir e Archaeological Society 36, pp54 - 102 . White, J . W.

1912

The Flora of Bristol

176

(Bristol : Wright) .

LAND- USE AND THE NATIVE VEGETATION OF GREECE Oliver Rackham

INTRODUCTION Mediterranean countrie·s have a distinctive climate with warm, wet , relatively frost - free winters and hot dry summers. But their vegetation and land - uses have less unity than is often supposed. They differ in t he length and severity of the dry season and the frequency of frost, and also in soils, flora and c~ltural practices . One cannot argue from the relatively lush landscape of Peninsular Italy , with its holm- oaks (Qu ercus i"lex), its woodcutting and burning, to the aridity, the prickly- oaks (Q. coccifera), and the goat- grazing of much o f Greece. [Latin names of plants follow Flora Europaea.] This paper is about Southern Greece and is based on travels in Boeotia, the Aegean islands and Crete (Fig.l) . This is an arid in places very arid - part of the Mediterranean, with low but concentrated rainfall and long hot summers. Frost is ra r e at low altitudes though few places escape it altogether, To the North European visitor the landscape of Southern Greece has an unde r - used appearance. Cultivated land is localized and woodland is very local . The hills and mountains are covered with spiny bushes ; pockets of soil are s canty ; bare rock and loose stones cover much of the surface; and pasture for sheep and goats is their most obvious land - use. Most writers, especially summer visitors who are unaware of t he richness and beauty of its specialized plant life, regard thi s terrain as 'barren'. There are two theories as to why this should be so . It is sometimes claimed that trees need soil in which to grow and that the scarcity of soil, and therefore of trees , on Greek hillsides is natural. This theory is now unpopular but has been expressed for the area round Mallia (Crete) by Dewolf et al. (1963). Most modern scholars regard the 'scrub' of Greek hills and mountains with disapproval as an artifact of human mismanagement. In prehistory , it is claimed , the slopes were covered with soil and were clothed with magnificent forests, whose roots held the soil in place. Men came and dest royed the trees by felling, grazing and burning (often no t d i fferentiated) . The trees were replaced by bushes , whose roots did not hold the soil in place. It was washed away into the sea or the plains, leaving what is customarily called a 'degraded landscape' of rock and scrub . Some authors have claimed that even the water- courses and the very climate have been affected by this ruination. "Deforestation has been man's chief crime against nature, and perhaps against himself , in the Balkan Peninsula" (Turrill 1929).

177

0

.ro

)Oes of evidence. (1)

Pollen analys is

This is more difficult in Mediterranean countries than in Northern Europe: (a) The dry , oxidizing climate and mainly calcareous soils do not encourage the for mation of stratified deposits in which pollen is preserved, (b) Many important Mediterranean plants produce little pollen. The Labiatae, so familiar to every tourist, are insect - pollinated, Bracken (Pt eridium aquilinum) is corrnnon in Crete but rarely produces spores and will not appear in pollen diagrams. (c) Different species produce the same pollen. Greece has 14 species of oak (Flora Europaea) which have different ecological prop erties but almost identical pollen. Some pollen analysts can distinguish the pollen of evergreen oaks (Quercus ilex, Q. coccifera, etc,) from that of deciduous oaks (Q. pubescens, Q. cerris, etc.) but species within these groups cannot be identified.

180

(d) The commonest Greek plant, prickly-oak (Q. coccifera), is perhaps the most adap table of all the European flora. Left to itself . ' . 1.t forms a tree 20 m high. If regularly grazed, it forms a bush varying in height from 2 m down to 4 cm according to the severity of grazing. Provided that the prickly- oak bush is allowed to exceed 60 cm high, it produces a full crop of acorns and apparently of pollen. o·a k pollen is very common in Greek depo sit s but tells us little about the vegetation: even if it can be identified as evergreen oak, it does not reveal whether the oaks were 20 m or 0 . 6 m high. (2)

Written records

The st uden t acc ustomed to the archival wealth of England will find Greece a difficult country: its blood - soaked history has not favoured the preservation of records of vegetation . Classical authors, such as Theophrastus and Pliny, have much to say about f lora bu t disappointingly little about vegetation or the landscape. (Fo r references see Turrill 1929; Kahrstedt 1954; Darby 1956). The Ancient Greeks assumed that their readers knew what Greece looked like, and theref ore do not tell us. The general impression is that the landscape of Southe rn Greece was not very different in Clas si~~ times from what it is now. Woods in part icular (see Pausanias) were impo r tant but not very extensive. Classical Athens grew firewood locally but imported its carpentry and shipbuilding timber from a dis tance (Michell 1940); this suggests that the locil woods were not rad ically diffe~ent in extent or character fr om the Attic pinewoods today. An impo rtant strategic obj ective in warfare was to intercept the enemy' s long- distance impo r ts of timber, .whipuyavd) which do no t was made by Theophrastus (History of Plants I.iii . l) and is.fundamental to Greek ecology. Many writers such as Turrill (1929) maintain that these are stages in the 'degradation' of the natural vegetation . The original forest was reduced by grazing, burning and wood - cutting to macchia; further assaults converted this to gariga and then to steppe. This theory does not fit we ll the vegetation of Southern Greece, where all three types norma lly occur to gether as a mosaic. The familiar summer as pect of Greece is of p a tches , each of a few square metres, of darkgreen macchia , grey- green gariga and yellow steppe (Plate I). The proportions of each type vary widely, and the limiting factor appears to be water. On moisture- r etaining soils (e.g . over serpentine rocks in Boeotia) or in high- r ainfall areas (e . g . much of Western Crete) there is near- continuous macch i a, In intermediate areas there is a mosaic of macchia , gar iga and steppe . In arid regions (e . g . the south coast of Crete) and on massive limestone rocks t he r e is no macchia. In the mo st arid place s steppe predominates .

Effects of gr azing The impo rt ance of grazing can be seen by observing the vegetation on either side of a wall or other barrier to livestock. Macchia consists of potential trees . If grazing ceases they grow up into actual trees. Secondary woodland thus forms· even more easily in Greece t han i t does in Br it ai n where trees have to colonize new ground . At p res ent grazing is widely in decline and larg e areas are turning into woodland: for instance several square km of the northeast slop e s of Mount Zagora have either just changed from macchia to woodland or (depending on one's de f inition) will do so in the next ten years . (New woods are also being formed by colonization , e . g . cypress - woods in the Vamos area and pinewoods around Myrtos). 'De forest at ion' is readily reversible in Greece , and no doubt has been reversed on many occasions in the past . I have observed, in both Boeotia and Crete, that when a mosaic of macchia and gariga ceases to be grazed, the macchia develops into woodland bu t the gariga develops , not into macchia as the Turrill theory would pre dict, but into steppe (Plate II) . I interpret this as the effect of limited soil water: the macchia shrubs transpire more when they ·turn into. trees, and the extra water is got by their roots spreading sideways and starving the gariga between them. If grazing were to cease in Boeotia, the country would not turn into continuous fo r est in the present climate; it would turn into patches of woodland and patches of steppe, Gariga is mainly an arti -

188

fact of grazing and would survive only locally on arid or rocky sites. But we must not suppose that Greece without grazing would revert to the same vegetation that it would have had if there had never been any grazing, Not only have the more edible woody plants disappeared from wide areas; among the less edible species there are gradations of response to grazing. This will be illustrated from the White Mountains. Around the Omalos Plain at 1000-1400 m altitude, cypress, Cretan maple and prickly-oak are thickly scattered amopg gariga that has been grazed by goats for many centuries. Having watched these goats I find that they will not eat cypress if they can get anything else. Cypress grows unhindered and keeps its branches down to ground level. Maple and oak are less unpalatable and are grazed dovm into topiary- like shapes about 1 rn high. If grazing relaxes they grow into trees. At this altitude maple grows faster than oak between successive browsings and so more easily becomes a tree, The area has been less severely grazed in the last 30- 40 years than previously; this is evident both from the age·-range of the present trees and from its much less wooded appearance in a photograph taken 70 years ago (Trevor-Battye 1913, p29). At present grazing does not prevent maple from becoming a tree but is just sufficient to keep most of the oaks, with their slower growth, in the topiary form (Plate III). There are therefore cypress-trees of all ages up to 500 years; many young maples, but very few older trees; and a handful of young oaks of tree form, mostly in gullies where extra moisture gives them slightly faster growth, The present regime is producing a wood of cypress and maple . A little less grazing would allow oak to become co-dominant. Western Crete has been famous for cypress-woods since Classical times; these, like the oaks of English wood-pastures (Rackham 1980, p293), are evidently in part the effect of millennia of goats eating their less distasteful competitors. Grazing has a more subtle effect on trees of intermediate edibility, such as maple and prickly- oak: it puts a premium on quick growth and thus narrows the natural range of a tree to climates and soils in which it grows specially fast. Holm-oak, as well as being a cliff relict, also occurs in acces siblemacchia, exposed to grazing, in the Kandanos-Elos area of Western Crete. Here it grows conspicuously faster than the other macchia trees, This is perhaps the least arid part of Crete and it may well be that high rainfall promotes rapid growth, In Boeotia prickly- oak is the commonest macchia tree up to 1400 m altitude. There is, however, one deciduous oakwood on the north side of Mount Zagara, at 800- 1000 m on a deep non- calcareous soil which is unusual for this altitude. Prickly-oak grows above as well as below the deciduous oaks, which are of four species (Quercus frainetto, pubescens, brachyphylla, cerris). There can be little doubt that this is a relict of once more extensive and varied deciduous woodland, of which the most palatable trees - lime, ash, hon1beam, etc. - survive only on nearby cliffs, Oak is in general the least palatable of deciduous trees and here persists in an accessible place, but only where an unusual combination of soil, rainfall and aspect enables it to

189

maintain su ffi ci ent growth to recover from grazing. it anywhere else in the Helicon massif,

I have not seen

Effects o.f bUY'ning In contrast to England, whose native woodland will not burn, Mediterranean countries seem very inflammable in the dry season . Fires are a common occurrence in macchia , especially in Italy. I estimate that in recent years about 2% of the wild vegetation of lowland Boeo tia has been burnt each year (partly because of the fashion for stubble - bu r ning, which sometimes gets out of hand), The same figure is estimated for the Argolid by Fo r bes and Koster (1976). Most macchia shrubs coppice after burning and recover very easily; the recovery i s retarded by grazing. Gariga undershrubs, in contrast, are usually k ill ed and only slowly return. Fires therefore have little effect on macchia but turn gariga into steppe. In particular they eliminate the very sensiti ve tall spiny bush CaZicotome viUosa, which is probably why bur ning is done in Western Crete to improve the pastur e . The effects of fire on the mainland Pinus haZepensis and the Cretan P. brutia deserve t o be studied . Are these very inflannnable trees, like some No rt h American pines, fire- dependent? Do they need to be burnt from time to time to prevent their replacement, in the long term, by shade- casting competitors?

Effects of z,wodcu-tti1ig'. Woodcutt ing is now infrequent, but there is widespread evidence for the cutting of macchia as underwood in the recent past. In many places the bushes are coppice st ools which have the stumps of a previous woodcutt:img at t heir bases , The use of macchia for domestic and industrial fuel is described by Forbes and Koster (1976) . Theophrastus, who gives the earliest written evidence for coppicing in Europe , men ti ons especially the Cretan cypress:

Cypres s generally grows from seed~ but in Crete also fro m :the stwoZ ( a,dtxos):) for instance in the mountains near Tarra. For there grows the cropping c ypress _, l,Jhich,after cutting, sprouts in aU directions .from the part cut and from the base and from the middle and from the upper part. Occasionally (bu-/; rarely) it also sprouts from the roots. History of Plants II.ii .2 Many of the cypresses in the White Mountains today exhibit this pro perty, which is ex cep ti onal among conifers and rightly attracted Theophras tus's notice. Nearly all common Greek trees and shrubs sprout readily and many of them are regularly coppiced in Italy. The two other common conifers, Abies and Pinus , die when felled but grow so easily from seed that woodcutting alone does not easily diminish them. Grazing retards, but is unlikely to prevent, the recovery of macchia after woodcutting. Macch ia, especially in the Greek climate, grows more slowly

190

than North European woods, but is nevertheless capable of being an important renewable source of energy, Forbes and Koster (1976) showed tha t a large parish in the Argolid consumed some 570 tons of wood annually, and in the nineteenth century had burnt a further 6000 tons, or more, a year in limekilns, Some of this was from cultivated trees (see later) and the rest from 69 square km of 'maquis 1 (evidently including some gariga). Despite the authors I claim that this was a destructive use of the vegetation, the amount of wood cut even in the nineteenth century, of the order of 1 ton per ha per year, 1s not prima facie out of balance with what macchia might be expected to pro duce, Woodcutting affects the structure of macchia but there is little good evidence that it has affected its extent or composition, Char coal - burners are said to preter to use roots and to dig them up (Forbes and Koster 1976), but such unrewarding labour can hardly have had mi.1ch impact on the vast area of macchia that exists, The recent decline of woodcutting does not appear to have caused macchia to increase in area. TREE MANAGEMENT IN GREECE The belief that Greece has no tradition of management and conservation of trees is not wholly justified, Woodmanship is less common than in England and has escaped the notice of travellers, but it can be found by diligent exploration, The practices are in de cline and may well have been more widespread in the past. Regular coppicing, as opposed to casual woodcutting in macchia, is exemplified by the deciduous oakwood already mentioned on Mount Helicon. On Naxos small coppices occur, as in England, on patches of uncultivable terrain among farmland, and are protected from grazing by the surrounding cultivation; the holm-oaks on ~cree, though now long uncut, have giant stool bases indicating centuries of past cutt,ing. Some holm-oaks on ledges of Cretan gorges, even where they can only be reached by rock-climbing, are also ancient coppice stools, Dewolf et al. (1963) report coppicing by regular fells (coupes reguli'?:Jres) in a wood on Mount Selena (Crete), These are all rather remote places with at least some natural protection from grazing, Faster growth, and in many instances the convenience of handling non- prickly trees, evidently outweighed the extra difficulty of cut tingand transporting the wood. Sharp edges are unusual in Greek woods but exist for instance around Rhitsona (Boeotia) and on the Cassandra Peninsula (Chalkidhiki, north Greece). Free- standing trees of wild species are not uncommon in farmland . Some of the Helicon parishes are full of long- established hedges. Non~woodland trees are often pollarded, and productive or pal atable species are singled out for special treatment (Plate IV), In a remote ravine among the macchia of Sembrona (western Crete) J, Moody and I came upon three ancient holm- oaks in a place accessible to goats, These, the only on~s of their species for miles around, had long been pollarded at a height of 6 m. Evidently their owner 191

had appreciated that these . unusual and edible trees would disappear unless specially treated, Pollard plane- trees, often of great size and age (Pl ate IV), grow along watercounses (e.g. in the Samaria Gorge) . Other pollards include willow, Pistacia terebinthus (in Boeotia), and even Abies cephafonica (on Helicon). Pollarding and less often coppicing are widely applied to cultivated trees such as olive, Quercus macrolepis (on Naxos), and sweet chestnu t (Castanea sativa) (in South- West Crete) . Individual pollards may be over 2m in diameter and several centuries old. On Samo s , which has a high rainfall and is very wooded, woodmanship is as well-developed as in England. Old pollard planes line the mountain wate rc ourses almost .t o sea- level . At 600 to lOOOm there are coppice- woods of a mixt ure of evergreen trees such as prickly and holm oaks and deciduous trees such as Quercus pubescens and Styrax officinalis . The woods ad join cultivated land and are approached by deeplysunk holloway s, They conta in edible trees and are evidently quite well protect ed from grazing ; but significantly the most palatable tree, ash , is not coppiced but shredded (a variant of pollarding), probably to yield leaf - fodder, Above 1000m the woods change to Pinus nigra ssp paUas iana and are managed for timber. Greek woodmansh i p is widespread and discerning. Why is it not more ext ensively practi sed? Presumably the motives for conserving wild trees a re weak , mu ch as in Sc otland (Rackham 1976, pl.5). In Greece two important factors are the climate and the abundance of olive s and other orchard trees. Fuel for domes tic hea ting is less necessa ry t han in Northern Europe, In We s t Crete t he chief cooking fuel is charcoal, and its making (by igniting earth- covered stacks of wood) is still a big i~dustry; but charcoal-burning is quite independent of woodland, for the raw mater i al is olive - wood, Olive- orchards are said to have cover ed a sixt h of Crete in 1948 (Allbaugh 1953). They are almost certainly a bigger producer of potential firewood, in the form of prunings and st ones, than the woodland of Crete, and are sited near villages. Wh ere olives are abundant and are pruned there is no purpose in s pend i ng extra labour on cutting and transporting wood from distant woodland . Olives have been grown and pr uned in Crete since the Bronze Age (Rackham 1972), although not necessarily always on so large a scal e a s they are now. (Ancient olive- groves, in which individual trees appear to be over 500 years old, are frequent i~ Crete, especially at higher altit udes , although uncommon in Boeotia. But a fourteenth century Cretan regi ste r (Santschi 1976) records 73 lawsuits over vineyard s but not one concerning olives) . Other orchard- type trees contribut e to t he wood supply: almonds, carobs (Ceratonia siliqua), the pollard macrolepis oaks of Naxos, and the ancient coppiced and pollarded chestnuts of South- West Crete, The need for timber in Greece is reduced by the abundance of building · stone. Olives yield some timber, used for instance for construc t ion at Bronze Age Myrtos and for windmill machinery in the modern Cyclades . Greece , as a seafaring and trading nation, ha.s always been well placed to import timber. Trees of a size and shape suitable for ro ofs, floors and ships are not easily grown in Southern Greece; there is lit tle reason to maintain t imber trees when better

192

timber can readily be brought from elsewhere,

POLLEN ANALYSIS AND PREHISTORIC VEGETATION Pollen diagrams going back beyond the Neolithic have been published from the site of Lake Copais in Boeotia (Greig and Turner 1974) and from Ayia Galini in Crete (Bottema 1980) . The Cretan diagram is the more detailed - deciduous and evergreen oaks are differentiated and presents the greater contrast between the present and pre- Neolithic vegetation. The south coastal belt of Crete, in which Ayia Galini and Myrtos (Rackham 1972) lie, is one of the most impressively arid parts of Europe; it is much drier and probably hotter thari the rest of the island. Macchi a is scarce and is dominated more by the very drought tolerant P1:stac1:a lentiscu s than by oak. Gariga and steppe predominate. Cultivation depends mainly on irrigation or ground - water. Much of the Ayia Galini diagram covers the pre- Neolithic period (radiocarbon date 8265 ± 50bp, GrN6672) and presumably represents the Post - glacial natural vegetation before human interference. About half the pollen is from trees , mainly oak with some pine especially from the earlier part of the period. The remainder is predominantly from plants nowadays typical of steppe, chiefly Compositae, Umbelliferae, Plantago, and Asphodelus. Asphodel is specially important because it is intolerant of s hade and (as Bottema showed) is a poor producer of pollen . The average of 7% which it contributes to the total pollen therefore mean s that steppe was a major part of the vegetation . _Gariga is very poorly repres ented ; although none of its species is a good producer of pollen, some (e . g. Sarcopoterium and Labiatae) would appear in the record had gariga been abundant. The Ayia Galini diagram therefore supports the thesis that the vegetation of Southern Greece, if ungrazed, would be a patchwork of woodland and st eppe with little gariga. In the same way the Copais diagram records a landscape dominated mainly by oak with small amounts of Compositae but no Sarcopoterium or Labiatae ; the oaks were more pre dominant than in Crete, as would be expected for a less arid region . The surprise of the Ayia Galini diagram is the abundance of de ciduou§ treE:s. A cons is tent proportion, about three-quarters, of the oak pollen is identif ied as "Q . ce:rris ty,pe"; this presumably means Q. pubescens, the only deciduous oak with a strong claim to be regarded as native to Crete. This oak is quite common at low altitudes, mainly on north aspects, on soft rocks (marly limestone, flysch, Older Fill), usually in small quantity on patches of rough ground near cultivation. It never occurs on hard limestone or above 800 m altitude (far below the upper limit of evergreen oaks) . This has puzzled plant geographers, who disapprove o f deciduous trees forming lower altitudinal zones than evergreen broadleaves (Zohary and Orshan 1965). It has even been alleged, on no positive evidence, that Q. pubescens was int:oduced_by the Minoans (Greuter 1975). The pollen evidence is that this oak is a relict and was once the commonest tree in what is now a particularly arid part of Crete . Other deciduous trees whose pollen appears in small quantity at

193

Ayia Galini are plane, elm (Ulmus) or Zelkova, alder (Alnus), lime, hazel (Corylus), birch (Be-tula), beech (Fagus), and hornbeam (Carpinus. and Ostrya). Only plane and Zelkova are now certainly native to Crete. Some of the others appear only as odd. grains, which Bottema regards as having been blown from a distance, This explanation is less easy to accept for alder (which appears in some quantity), lime (a pollen that does not travel far), or birch (now hardly an Aegean tree at all). Lime and hornbe'arn, as we have seen, are also reported from Copais and still just survive in the nearby mountains; they could yet be found in some lonely gorge in Crete, If Ayia Galini is representative of Southern Crete, the pre Neolithic vegetation consisted of patches of woodland and patches of steppe. The woodland was a mixture or mosaic of deciduous and ever green oaks, the former predominating, and a declining proportion of pine, We may tentatively place the deciduous oak mainly on soft rocks and the evergreen oak (chiefly Q. ilex, cf. Rackham 1972) on hard limestone. Woody climbers included vines and ivy. Streamside woods included plane and alder; there was occasional lime and perhaps even birch in favoured places, The steppe, however, was quite arid with much asphodel . The same picture, with less steppe, may have been repeated in Boeotia. A gap in the pollen diagram prevents us from knowing how, or when, this changed into the present vegetation; the most recent samples indicate fewer trees and some evidence of cultivation (Chenopodiaceae) but still little evidence of gariga.

Many of the changes in Cretan vegetation can be as.cribed to livestock favouring gariga plants and evergreen trees. In particular, the present restricted distribution of Quercus pubescens, the most palatable of the oaks, may well be an artifact of grazing. Observa tionsin North-West Crete show that it grows much faster than evergreen oaks provided it has abundant moisture; its palatability is then off set by its rapid growth, The necessary moisture is to be had only on the deeper soils, which do not occur at high altitudes, and on the less dry aspects. The soils on which Q. pubescens can survive grazing are almost always cultivated, hence the rarity of the tree in natural vegetation. It has probably never done well on hard limestone - I have yet to fihd it on a cliff - but before grazing it might well have grown on shallower soils and drier aspects than it does now. However, it is unlikely that any amount of not grazing would convert the present furnace of Southern Crete to a landscape dominated by deciduous trees. Pines survive (as at Myrtos) and evergreen oaks would grow in less arid spots; but the survival of deciduous oaks is unlikely and that of lime out of the question, The pre- Neolithic veg etation presupposes a much less arid climate, corresponding to a change of 500-1000 m altitude. The pollen evidence does not allow us to date the change. By the Bronze Age the climate of Southern Crete appears to have been not much less arid than now (Rackham 1972).

CONCLUSIONS The vegetation of Southern Greece is much limited by rainfall and is therefore very sensitive to changes in rainfall. These can be rapid, especially in rain-shadow areas (Hierapetra is said to have been twice as wet from 1938 to 1947 as from 1948 to 1957 (Rackham 1972)).

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Changes in Greek vegetation have hitherto been ascribed mainly to human activities; the effects of climate need closer study, 'Deforestation' took place mainly before Classical times. Tall trees were replaced by macchia and steppe by gariga. That this was a bad ecological policy is by no means certain. It has produced a di verse and stable ecosystem in which the varied shrubs and undershrubs may well be of more use t han the original trees and meagre herbs would have been. There is a host of useful by-products, notably honey and edible wild plants (Forbes 1976), It is unlikely that deforestation can be blamed for erosion. Rapid erosion is no t now prevalent in Southern Greece: in Boeotia mere earth banks with a little grass are quite sufficient to hold up terraces on slopes.· Erosion is still 'evident in a few places, as around Myrtos, but as small localized tracts of gullied 'badlands' rather than as a general phenomenon. One badland area in Epirus (North- West Greece) is still expanding despite the presence of trees (Harris and VitaFinzi 1968). Conversely, a badland which I have seen near Thebes has almost ceased to erode despite the vegetation consistimg of no more than the most tenuous gariga, As Plato correctly conjectured, Greece lost most of its soils in remote prehistory for reasons unconnected with human activity. This gigantic phase of erosion, contemporary with the last glaciation in Northern Europe, produced the Older Fill, so prominent in Greek geology, Then followed a period of quiescence extending to Plato's time and beyond. Although alluviations have been ascribed to times of deforestation (e,g. Greig and Turner 197Lf), these are not large nor extens:i'1P, In Classical times a lesser period of erosion then began, though not everywhere, to produce the deposits known as Younger Fill (Vita-Finzi 1969; Bintliff 1977). Whether or not Younger Fill can be attributed t o a single cause is controversial; but it is very unlikely that that cause was deforestation. Most studies of Younge; Fill date it in different places between A. D. 500 and 1500: a millennium, on the whole, of evil times for men and therefore of good times for trees, Although a recent study (Wagstaff 1981) suggests that it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, Younger Fill is less characteristic :of the Classical millennium of prosperity and expansion than of the later age of recurrent war and recession. When pestilence devoured the men, and hungry armies may be supposed to have swept up the goats, woodland is almost certain t o have increased. The causes of Younger Fill must be sought elsewhere. Changing climate is the most familiar hypothesis, but extremes of weather would fi t better the wide variation in dates. Did not the woodland and the soil of Zakro (East Crete) both vanish in a night of deluge on 14 May 1901 (Hogarth 1910)? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Part of this work was done during the Cambridge - Bradford Boeotia Expeditions promoted by the British School at Athens, and another part in preparation for the Thera and the Aegean World Congress of 1978 sponsored by Mr. P.M. Nomikos. It is a pleasure to thank Professor P.M. Warren, Professor A. M. Snodgrass, Dr. J, Bintliff, and Miss J.A.

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Moody for inviting me to take part in help and learned encouragement. I am Atherclen and to Jenny Moody, in whose I have visitedmany places which would·

their studies and for their specially indebted to Dr. Margaret enthusiastic and trusty company otherwise have been inaccessible .

REFERENCES Allbaugh LG 1953 Crete: a case study of an underdeveloped area (Princeton : u-;=;:-iversity Press) Basilicata F 1630 Relazione al . . . S.r Pietro Giustiniano. Digniss. mo Cap. no G. nel regno di Candia Spanakis SG (ed) 1969 _(Herakleion: MvnµEfo .·,ns KpfinKns 'Icr,opfos ,roµ. 5.) Belon C 1555 Le s ob servati ons de plusieurs singularitez & choses memor ab les (Paris) Bintliff J 1977 Natural envir onment and human settlement in prehis toric Greece, based on original fieldwork (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports Supplementary Series 28) Boschini M 1651 11 regno tutto di Candia delineato a parte a parte [veneziaJ Bottema S 1980 'Palynological investigations on Crete' Review of Pal aeobotany and Palynology 31, ppl93 - 217 ,A,

Buondelmont i C a14 15 Descrip ti on des ~les de l'Archipel E (ed ) 1897 (Paris)

Legrand

Darby HC 1956 'The clearing of the woodland in Europe' In Thomas WL (eel) Man's rol e in changing the face of the earth (Chicago : University Press), ppl83 - 216 Dewolf Y Postel F and van Effenterre H 1963 'Geographie prehistorique de la region de Mallia' Etudes cretoises 13, pp28 - 53 Forbes HA and Koster HA 1976 'Fire, axe and plow : human influence on loc al pl ant communities in the southern Argolid' Annals of the New York Academy of Science 268, ppl09 - 126 Forbes MHC 1976 'Farming and foraging in prehistoric Greece: a cul tural eco logical perspective' Annals of the New York Academy of Science 268, ppl 27 - 142 . Greig JRA and Turner J 1974 'Some pollen diagrams from Greece and their archaeological significance' Journal of Archaeological Science 1, ppl77 - 194 Greuter W 1967 pp243 - 250

'Beitrage zur Flora der Stidagais 8'

Bauhinia 3,

Greuter W 1975 'Die Insel Kreta - eine geobotanische Skizze' Veroffentlichungen des geobotanischen Instituts . ETH, Stiftung Rubel Zurich 55, ppl41- 197

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Harris DR and Vita- Finzi C 1968 'Kokkinopilos - a Greek badland 1 Geographical Journal 134, pp537 - 546. Hogarth DG 1910 Macmillan)

Accidents of an antiquary's life

(London:

Kahrstedt U 1954 Das wirtschaftliche Gesicht Griechenlands in der Kaiserzeit (Bern: A. Francke) Kizis Y 1979 'Timber framed houses of Pelion, Greece' Archit ecture 10, pp3 - 9 Michell H 1940 Press) Pausanias Plato

cl7 0

c420 BC

The economics of Ancient Greece

Vernacular

(Cambridge: University

Guide to Greece Criti as

Rackham O 1972 'The vegetation of the Myrtos region' and 'Charcoal and pl as t er impressions' In Warren PM Myrtos: an Early Bronze Age settl eme nt in Crete (Athens: The British School of Archaeology at Athens, Supplementary Volume No.7, Thames and Hudson), pp 283 - 304 Rackham O 1976 Dent)

Trees and woodland in the British landscape

(London:

Rackham O 1977 'Neolithic woodland management in the Somerset Levels : Garvin' s, Walton Heath, and Rowland's Tracks' Somerset Levels Paper s 3, pp65 - 71 Rackham O 1979 'Documentary evidence for the historical ecologist' Landscape History 1, pp29 - 33 Rackham O 1980 Ancient woodland: its history, vegetation and uses in England (London : Edward Arnold) Rackham O 1982 'The growing and transport of timber and underwood' In McGrai 1 S (ed) Woodworking techniques before 1500 AD (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series 129, ppl99 - 218. Santschi E 1976 Regestes des arrets civils et des memoriaux (1363 1399) des arc hives du Due de Crete (Venise: Bibliotheque de l'Institute Hellenique d'Etudes byzantines et post-byzantines de Venise) Seager RB 1905 'Excavations at Vasiliki, 1904' University of Pennsylvania Transactions of the Department of Archaeology 1, 207 - 221 Theophrastus

Fourth century BC

History of plants

Tournefort Pde 1717 Relation d'un voyage ad Levant, fait par ordre du Roy (Lyon : Anisson et Posuel)

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Trevor- Battye A 1913

Camping in Crete

(London: Witherby)

Turrill WB 19 29 The plant - life of the Balkan peninsula University Press)

(Oxford:

Tzamtzis AI 1972 'Ships , ports and sailors' In Papadopoulos SA (ed) The Greek merchant marine (1453 - 1850) (Athens : National Bank of Greece) Vita- Finzi C Press)

1969

The Mediterranean valleys

(Cambridge: University

Wagstaff JM 1981 'Buried assumptions: some problems in the interpretation of the "Younger Fill" raised by recent data from Greece.' Journal of Archaeological Science 8, pp247-264 Warren PM 197 2 '16th , 17th and 18th century British travellers in Crete' Cretica Khronika 24, pp65 - 92 Zohary Mand Ors han G 1965 'An outline of the geobotany of Crete' Israel Journal of Botany 14 (supplement), ppl - 49

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FOREST GRAZING AND CLEARANCE IN TEMPERATE EUROPE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DENMARK: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL VIEW Peter Rowley-Conwy The aim of this paper is to put forward an archaeological viewpoint of c.ertain r ec ent developments in our knowledge of European forests and their clearance. As an archaeologist, the author is not acquainted with the full range of the palynological literature , It is hoped , however, tha.t an archaeological view of some recent work will be of interest to archaeologists (who may in some cases be unaware of some of this work) and also to palynologists (who may in some cases be unaware of some of the questions archaeologists are asking) . 1.

MESOLITHIC FORESTS

(a) Early views

The Mesolithic of Europe has commonly been regarded as a period of cultural retrogression, a rather uninteresting bridge between the brilliant, cave painting Upper Palaeolithic and the dynamic, crop planting Neolithic . The background to this view is the "hiatus" theory of the last century, which postulated an unoccupied Europe between the end of the glacial epoch and the appearance of farming (Clark 1980). Although this theory was discredited at an early date, a minimal view has still often been taken of the Mesolithic (see Rowley- Cornvy in pres s) . This . was reinforced by aspects of early pollen analysis. Iversen (1941), in his article "Land Occupation in Denmark's Stone Age", suggested that the major decline in the forest curves at the start of the Sub-boreal was due to the appearance of a particular type of farming . These clearances contrasted strongly with the forest of the previous period, in which: "The surprisingly low percentages of grass and herb pollen in Atlantic times show that before the Neolithic forest clearances the country (Denmark) was covered by a continuous primeval forest, with no openings other than swamps and moors." ( Iversen 1941, p43) The next stage was for extrapolations to be made about human behaviour . In 1949 Iversen wrote: "In the Atlantic period, Denmark was covered by continuous woodland, . . There would scarcely be any natural glades of any size or stability • ..• The c·omparati vely dark character of the Danish forest implied that conditions of living in it were unfavourable for animals, which means man too, The Mesolithic

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hunter and fisher cultures had to subsist under severe conditions ' and large parts of the country must have been almost empty of human beings in the Atlantic period." (Iversen 1949, p6) This view was held by Iversen until his death (cf. Iversen 1973). Troels - Smith presented similar views: "The country (Denmark) was covered by a thick primeval forest .•.. Compared to the rich animal life of the late glacial, Preboreal and to some extent Boreal periods, the amount of animal life in the Atlantic period was extremely low. Only wild pig throve under these conditions." (Troels - Smith 1960, p98, author's translation). The "forest's lack of fodder in the form of grass and herbs" ( ibid • ., p98) is again emphasised . The work of these two authorities has been widely quoted inside and outside Denmark , and has influenced many archaeological views of the Mesolithic. The view that population fell from a late glacial high to an Atlantic minimum is often met with; Troels - Smith believes that "scarcely 30 people divided among 5 or 6 families probably constituted the entire population of Denmark at that time" (1960, p102, author's translation). The apparent increase of coastal exploitation is often said to result from this: the coasts were the only areas suitable for occupation (Waterbolk 1968). Bradley mentions "the crisis brought on by afforestation" and that "one response to these pressures was greater use of the shoreline" (1978, p98). In fairness it must be mentioned that some archaeologists have not subscribed to this view ( Clark 1968; Newell 1973). The view that Atlantic forests were generally a bad place to live has lingered on, however, and is increasingly at odds with the recent documentation of much Atlantic period settlement of the interior. Some have tried to reconcile the two pieces of evidence: Bay Petersen (1978) has suggested that the lacustrine zone, between closed forest and open lake, would have been the main vegetational zone available to ungulates in Denmark, Others have ignored the pollen evidence altogether and have suggested that in southern England undergrowth may have been so dense as to inhibit hunting (Mellars and Reinhardt 1978). (b)

Ecological considerations

Studies of modern temperate woodland are of prime relevance to this problem . In general, such studies highlight the amount of variability that may be expected in different types of woodland. That well- developed shrub and field layers do occur in most modern, temperate forests seems undoubted . In his major work, Rackham (1980) discusses various types of woodland , Earlier works by Tansley (1939 , 1968) mention that bracken and bramble are common plants, and may form "a dense mass of vegetation" (1968, p100). The

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succe s sive a nd overlapping productivity of some herb s serve s to provirk cont i nuous availab i lity of such plants through large parts of the year . Recent years have s e en a gr owing realization of the importanc e of lime in Atlantic fo r ests, both in Denmark (Iversen 1960; Troels - Smith 1960) and i n Britain (discussed by Greig in this volume, p23 and see also Birks e t al . 1975; Godwin 1975). Pollen of lime is spread by insects and less likely to dispe rse widely, hence its under- represent ation in pollen diagrams (Andersen 1973) . Lime casts more shade than oak , and so i s le s s likely to encourage undergrowth . This could be argue d to have had an adverse effect on ungulate productivity and availability . However, Mella.rs and Reinhardt (1978) quote American sourc e s to . the effect that Indians there considered too dense undergrowth a bad thing , becaus e ·it made hunting difficult by reducing visibility , If the effect of lime in Europe was to provide areas of thinner understorey, then it could be argued that the shade - casting, unde rgrm·rth diminishing effect of lime might have been favourable . Far from automatically r e moving game, it may have created areas in which hunt i ng mi ght be easier , This could be particularly relevant to Mella.rs a nd Re inhardt' s discussioh of South- east England, because lime 1-ras common there (Birks et al .1975). Exact quant i f i cation is difficult , and sources vary widely dependi ng on the c omposition, location, climate and management of the woodlands the y discuss, and this should of course be borne in mind when the pre histor i c situation is considered . The following examples give s ome ide a of the variation . Figures from the Virelles mixed oak forest in Belgium emphasize one impor t ant poi nt ; much of the biomass is not in a form which is directly us a ble by man or the ungulates he hunts. Total biomass was calculated as 156 tons/ha. Of this, however, 35 tons were roots and 112 tons we r e wood . Much of the leaf grm·rth was in the canopy, out of reach of ground herbivores. Despite this, shrub and field layers were present . The poorly developed shrub layer had a biomass of over 250,000 dry kg /km 2 ; the a,bove- ground biomass of the field layer was nearly 220 , 000 dry kg/km 2 • Above- ground production of the field layer was 66 ,000 dr y kg/km 2 annually (Duvigneaud and Dena.eyer - de Smet 1970). More ge ne ral figm·es are given by Rodin and Bazilevich ( 1967) . Gras se s under broad- leave d forests may have an average biomass of around 10,000 25 , 000 kg/km 2 in the interior parts of continents. More oceanic a reas have much more, and figures of 80 , 000 kg/km 2 for oakwood and 105,000 dry ltg /km 2 for alder woods a.re quoted for the Briti s h Isles. Figures given by Ovington fall in the same general range. A forest in th e interior of the u. S . A. had a herbaceous biomass of c, 6000 - 8000 dry kg/km 2 ( Ovington 1964). Biomass of ground vegetati on in Br i t a in was much hi gher - values for oak woods varied betwe en c . 23 ,000 and 164 , 000 dry kg/km 2 , while alder woods gave a value of.215 , 000 dry kg/km 2 (Ovington 1955). It may be ri s ky to us e the managed and young, even- aged woods from which these f i gures are derived as analogues for the Atlantic

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forests, a.nd it should be remembered that some of the herbage of slow growing plants adapted to woodland life is either poisonous or of low nutritive value and unpalatable to browsing animals. Nevertheless, the figures do suggest that we should.not automatically assume that Mesolithic forests were devoid of undergrowth. Comparisons with other environments are ins~ructive. The usefulness of temperate forests for grazing is much less than that of some other environments, Savanna, although having a lower overall biomass than temperate forests, has a very much greater quantity of fodder available at ground level (Ovington 1964) . In view of the supposed crisis facing European popu1ations at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic, however (see above), the most instructive comparison is with tundra. Figures are scarce, but Rodin and Bazilevich (1967) state that the above - ground biomass of flowering plants in arctic tundra is in the range 20,000 - 50,000 dry kg/km 2 : Productivity of 'green parts of the plants is about 14,000 dry kg/km 2 per year. Total plant biomass and productivity is much higher, but due to the harsh climate 70% of both is in root form, These fi gures thus suggest that tundra biomass and productivity overlap only with the lower end of those of ground vegetation under deciduous woodland. It would be interesting to know whether further studies bear this out. Such biomass figures as are available for ungulates in various environments reflect the same trend . Mellars (1975) concludes from a range of modern cases that ungulate biomass in mixed deciduous woodland is usually in the range 1000 - 2500 kg/km 2 • This is higher than values for tundra. Bourliere (1963) gives a value for caribou in Canada of 800 kg/km 2 • Whittaker gives an even lower figure. B million km 2 of tundra and alpine environments contain a total animal biomass of 3.5 million tons , or about 440 kg/km 2 (Whittaker 1975, Table 5, 3). From the point of view of human exploitation, reliability is just as important as biomass. Burch stresses the unreliability of reindeer: "It is possible for even a small band of very primitive hunters to kill literally hundreds of animals in a few days when such a mass (100,000 or more) passes through; but if the animals fail to appear again next year - a not impossible situation in the case of tarandus - they might all starve to death. It is Liebig's laiJJ of the minirrrwn,

not infla-/;ed estimates about immense aggregations, that should guide ou.r thinking about tarandus as a human resource." (Burch 1972, p360; the original).

emphasis in

J . G. D. Clark long ago made the point that the presence of a wider range of animal species in temperate forests (pig, red and roe deer elk. aurochs and many smaller animals), created a more reliable ' . would food ' resource . It would be unlikely that all these species suffer bad years at the same time, and their much smaller degree of seasonal mobility makes the temperate species much more predictable

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( Clark 1968, ·19[30). '11emperate forests are also likely to have contained a very much greater quantity of plant foods than does tundra, and this would have been of very great significance in the Mesolithic (Clarke ·1976). (c)

Recent developments in pollen analysis and their implications

The above studies thus suggest that Atlantic forests are unlikely to have been the uniformly hostile environment interpreted by early pollen analysis. This information will probably not surprise students of forest ecology, but is at variance with the traditional archaeological view that there was a "crisis brought on by afforestation" (Bradley 1978, p98). If the suggestion that these forests were more variable and had more undergrowth has any validity, however, where is the pollen of the field and shrub layers? Modern pollen studies clearly provide the answer. Many archaeol ogists are, however, unaware of these studies; and it is perhaps also true that pollen analysts are unaware of the effect these studies could have on archaeological interpretations. As Edwards writes, "the palynologist must be aware that his audience consists increasingly of archaeologists who are not aware of the finer details of the palaeoecologist I s art 11 ('1979, p259). The dispersion of pollen grai.ns, and the distance they travel, is a consici.erable problem (cf. Moore 1976). Tauber ( 1965, 1977) emphasizes the importance of both windspeed and filtration, of pollen upon the composition of pollen spectra. He mentions within- forest windspeeds of 0.5 - 1.5 m/sec, only 10 - 20% of those prevailing outside the forest. Pollen is thus less likely to be carried very far inside a forest. The relatively dense vegetation surrounding lakes is also likely to filter the pollen before it is deposited where the pollen analyst will later find it, Both these factors suggest that pollen corning through the trunkspace will be less likely to get to a future sample point than will pollen carried above the forest canopy. Tauber found that the trunkspace component from a small lake was some 35% of the total ( 1977, p65). Others suggest that even les.s may come through the trunkspace - Currier and Kapp (1974) found that the trunkspace component in a small lake in deciduous woodland in the U.S.A. was very limited, Of crucial importance is the fact that windspeeds near the forest floor are much low~r than higher up within the trunkspace - perhaps as low as half (Andersen 1974). Quite a lot of work has been done showing that pollen from low dmm in the trunkspace has little chance of being carried very far. Raynor, Hayes and Ogden (1974) released stained pollen grains a few metres outside a forest, For the first few metres, many grains were filtered by the forest edge vegetation. Thereafter, as windspeeds declined, impaction on the vegetation decreased, and most pollen was lost by deposition onto the forest floor. Work by Handel on sedge pollen showed that Carex platyphylla pollen rarely travels more than 1 m. from the emitting plant. The slightly higher growing C. plantaginea (20 cm. as against 12 cm. in C. platyphylla) occasionally spread its pollen a little further (Handel 1976). Andersen (1970) collected pollen from mosses on the

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floor of a Da nish forest, and concluded that only herbaceous species of above ave r age he i ght spread pollen any distance beyond their areas of growth . Of the two species mentioned by Tansley (1968) as some times formin g "a dense mass of vegetation", Andersen notes that bramble pollen "is not di spersed very far", while bracken spores are "rare • • . even in plac e s where the spec i es grows abundantly" (1970, pp69- 70). Levin and Kerst er ( 197l.f) show that very little pollen from insect pollinated plant s goes more than a few metres. In general, "the pollen of herbac eous for est plants are diffused a few metres only" (Andersen 1970, plr 1) . All thi s suggests that herbaceous pollen from a forest floor is highly unlikely to get where pollen analysts will find it. Modern pollen studie s have come a long way from the assumption that there is such a thing as a "dens e and even pollen rain" as suggested by Faegri . and Ivers e n ( ·1964 , p34) . Their explicit assumption "that pollen grains are eve nly distributed: their absence from a surface indicates that the species in question did not occur at that time rn that locality" (ibid ., p83) has been modified, This recent pollen work thus goes some way towards removing the apparent conflict between early pollen analysis (suggesting that Atlanti c forests we re not a good environment for man), and ecological and archaeological evidence (suggesting that the forests probably had some under grmrth and were extensively occupied by both un gulates a nd humans). If th i s i s s o, one wonders whether the picture of unbroken forests need be entire ly correct . Extrapolations are usually unilinear: vegetation is tal1:. en a s given; from this, ungulate distribution is inferred; and from thi s inference human behaviour is predicted. We may note, however , that man and all the major ungulate species were present in Denmark and els ewhere for several millennia before the development of the Atlantic . forests. It seems likely that grazing might have affected the development and regeneration of these forests . The e ff ects of wild or feral pig (Bratton 1975; Wodzicki 1950) and red deer (Strandgaard 1967; Wodzicki 1950) on forests have been document e d., as have the effects of domestic animals (Adams 1975; Grigson this volume p299) . Could forest cover have been less total than Iver sen envisaged? Some recent views continue to emphasize that the l ow r epre sentation of undergrowth pollen indicates a·continuous tree cover at low altitudes ( Simmons et al . 1981 ) , However, Rose has pointed out that most epiphytic lichens on oak and other trees are light demanding, which s uggests for the prehistoric period the existence of "nume rous glades . •. • perhaps maintained by large herbivores" (1974 , p257) . The possibility of deliberate burning must also be born in mind (cf. Mellars 1976). A widespread and apparently sophisticat e d programme of burning to increase grazing has been suggested for the Pennines during the Mesolithic (Jacobi, Tallis and Mellar s 1976) . I s i t po s s i ble that some burning also took place in lowland areas such as Denmark or southern England - but that it is visible to.pollen analysis only in the uplands due to greater speed and turbulenc e of the wind, and/or less filtration due to thinner vegetation ? Suffice to note that one authority states that a small clearing might be vi s ible if it disturbed the forest edge close to

204

the sampling point. "A small clearance which did not disturb the forest edge probably would not be detected in this way" (Turner 1964, p590) . 2,

THE ELM DECLINE It is now necessary to consider the clearance of the forests.

An early suggestion was that the notorious elm decline might have been

caused by the collection of fodder for stalled cattle (Troels - Smith 1953) . One a s pect of this suggestion is not often appreciated: the problem of scale. Troels- Smith (1960) states that a pollarded elm tree can produce 2 bundles of leaves per year, and that a stalled cow needs at least 400 - 500·such bundles every year. (In Troels - Smith's view the cattle were stalled all year due to the lack of fodder in the forest). Implicit in Troels - Smith's view is the fact that 200 - 250 elms were pollarded (with a stone axe) for each individual animal. This seems to be an impossibly large amount of work. For the sake of the following calculations it will be assumed that 15% of the forest was elm (this is close to Rackham's (1980) estimate of 1/8 for Britain) . If mature woodland contains some 60- 100 trees per acre (i.e. 150- 250/ha) (Tansley 1939, p277), then Denmark, with an area of nearly l.r3 ,000 km 2 can be calculated to have contained between 95 and ·160 million elm trees . Elm often declines to less than half its former values (Tauber 1965), A decline of one half would imply the pollarding of l.r7 - 80 million elm trees. If it takes 200-250 trees to feed each animal, the total head of cattle would have been between 190,000 and l.ro0,000. Troels - Smith argues that ivy and ash were similarly used . In this case the figure is likely to be up to half a million cattle. Iversen himself, as a native of that part of Denmark under German rule till after the first World War, was involved in collecting fodder for animals on the western front, and makes no mention of pollarding (Iversen 1973, p79). If the estimate of 3,5 tons of leaf matter per hectare given by Duvigneaud and Denaeyer- de Smet (1970) is taken as typical, then the following calculations may be made regarding unpollarded elms. Following Fleming ( 1972) a multiplier of 1 • 5 is used to convert Duvigneaud and Denaeyer-de Smet's figure for dry matter into actual fodder weights. This suggests some 5,25 tons of leaves per he ctare , or 525 tons/km 2 • If elm is 15% of this, there should b e some 80 tons of elm leaf fodder per km 2 • If half of this is collected, a yield of 40 tons of fodder per km 2 is indicated. Clark (1952) quotes Sjobeck's estimate that one cow needs 1000 kg. leaf fodder during the winter, If for the sake of argument we assume a need of 2000 kg. for the full year, then each km 2 of forest would support 20 cattle. The 43,000 km 2 of Denmark would thus contain some 860,000 cattle . Wi th ash and ivy, the nwnber would probably be well over 1 million. The numbers of animals implied by the fodder collection theory seem impossibly high for the prehistoric period, Calculations of this nature are fraught with problems. It is therefore niost reassuring to

205

note that calculations by Rackham produce the same sort of result from a different line of enquiry. Rackham calculates on the basis of the pollen diagrams that c., 1 /8 of Britain, some 10,000,000 acres, was covered in elm trees. "For Neolithic ·man to have pollarded this gigantic area of elm so efficiently as to halve its pollen production requires a population much larger and more elm- centred than any archaeologist has hitherto proposed" ( ·1980, p266), Rackham I s estimate is that a minimum population of about half a million adults would be needed, Rackham's calculations also have a bearing· on the theory that elm was preferentially cleared by early farmers because it was an indicator of good soils (cf. Mitchell ·1956). This theory implies the clearance of very large areas of woodland. It seems that theories of an anthropogenic cause of the elm decline are virtually ruled out by the scale of the. operations they demand, 3.

THE LANDNAM PHENOMENON AND SHIF'rING CULTIVATION

(a) PoUen anaZy-ticaZ developments

It has sometimes been assumed that the pollen evidence offers clear support for shifting cultivation in the Neolithic (cf. Iversen 1973). Shifting cultivation is enshrined in the archaeological literature concerning Neolithic Europe, whether in textbooks (Milisauskas 1978), or in articles oriented either ecologically (Green 1980) or socially (Gilman 1981). Iversen 1 s impressive and detailed demonstration that the regeneration of woodland after clearance phases tallies with that to be expected after a fire clearance is not without its problems, however. The regeneration sequence of birch, then hazel, then regenerating forest is put forward in ter.ms of a single clearing in the forest, Dated diagrams from Denmark and elsewhere make it clear, however, that the phase may last several centuries, much longer than a single clearing should take. It was suggested early on (Troels - Smith 1953) that the phenomenon in fact represented an amalgam of many clearings spread over a larger area and longer time period, an idea recently developed by Edwards (1979). If a longer time period is represented, however, we should not expect so clear a regeneration sequence to be visible, There would have been clearings at all stages of clearance, cultivation and regrowth all contributing to the pollen diagram, and the various stages of regeneration should blur into each other and not remain distinct ( Rowley- Camry 1981 ) • Considerations such as these have recently led some pollen analysts to be more cautious in their interpretations, Smith has recently written that "there is no denying that these communities may have used a forest-fallow system of agriculture" (1981, p205); on the other hand, "semi- permanent agriculture would not be out of line with recent palaeobotanical evidence" (ibid. ,p206), Bradley's (1978, p2) state ment that pollen analysis is "a discriminating judge of human activity" has been critized by Edwards, who writes: "Iversen was doubtless right to hypothesize short - term cycles of clearance, but the pollen diagram in most cases would be

206

incapable of detecting individual events of short duration unless only one farming cormnunity was temporarily. resident within the pollen source area". ( 197 9 , p261 ) Coles (197 6 ) has pointed to the small size of individual clearances by recent colonizing f armers and has suggested that these might not be visible at a ll in the pollen diagrams. The difficulties of picking up short term events have recently been discussed by Moore (1980), who points out that the slower the rate of sedimentation, the greater the loss of resolution . Besides this, pollen resuspension in water, and bioturbation (the activities of lakebe_d organisms) will also serve to blur resolution. Moore adds that: "statistic ally the data are difficult to analyse, because one is dealing with the minor components of the total pollen input" . ( 1980 , p 120 ) Other factor s may also affect the short term picture. In lakes into which over 90% of the arriving pollen was carried by water, Peck (1 973) found that seasonal variations in rainfall intensity significantly varied the proportions of pollen in the streams. Even if the problems mentioned by Moore are overcome, examination of a cultivation phase lasting no more than a year or two would have to take this into account. Another factor to be borne in mind is the uncert ainty over .the sourc e area of the pollen contributing to the spectrum (Moore 1976) , Edwards ( 1979 and this volume pS ) points out that what appears as a small clearance phase in a pollen diagram may be just that; equally, much l arger events oc curring further from the sample point may also cause minor a lterations in the spectrum. As any combination of (i) size of clearing(s) and (ii) distance of the clearing(s) from the sample point may be involved, the difficulties of distinguishing and interpret ing the nature of any individual clearing are obvious, Until pollen analysis is able to approach this problem more directly, the uncertainties reflected in the statements of the above authorities should be born in mind i n any discussion of shifting cultivation in Neolithic Europe . (b)

The question of shifting cultivation

It will be noted that Edwards, quoted above, believes that "Iversen was doubtless right to hypothesize short term cycles of clearance" (1 979 , p261) . The article by Edwards is one of the most important statements on these matters to have appeared in recent years, and his statement is a reasonable one, given much of the current literature - pollen analysis is not the only discipline suggesting that shifting cultivation occurred in the Neolithic of Europe . Some objections have been raised , however; this is not the place for a full discussion of the issue, but mention of some of the main points will be made,

207

The spectre of soi l exhaustion is frequently invoked as causing the abandonment of agricultural plots. This is based to a considerable degree on analogies with tropical swidden systems. Some European soils will in fact support continuous crop production even without manuring or fallowin g, although productivity i s increased by both of these (s ee Rothamsted Experimental Station 1970 and Russell and Voelcker 1936 for modern experiments , and Reynolds 1981 for experiment s with emmer and spelt) . Slash and burn experiments on the other hand suggest low and unreliable pro ductivity for shift ing cultivation (Reynolds 1977; Steensberg 1979; for discussions see Bay-Peters e n in press and RowleyConwy 198 1) . Weed infestat i on may be a problem but may be cont rolled by means of ards or graz ing animal s, both of which were present at an early dat e. Ard marks are now known fr om Denmark in a cultural context that can hardly date much later than 2700 be (Eriksen 1980) . This is about the time of the earli est radiocarbon dates f or the landnam phenomena. Use of the ard i s rar e in systems of s hifting cultivation because of the problems of negotiating roots, unburnt timber , etc., and becaus e of the lack of any nee d to maintain fertility in the long- term (cf. Boserup 1965 ) . Domestic ani mals are present from the start of the Neolithi c in north western Europe . It seems most probable t hat they would have been grazed on s tubble or fall ow areas and their manure us ed to increase the fertility of the fields. In Ivers en's scheme, not all the cleared and burnt are a was for cultivation . Much of it, he suggest ed, was for grazing: "The cattle had to have food, but the forest as it stood could not provide it . .. Light and a ir had to be provided for herbs and the bushes to grow .•• The large clearance fires at the time of the Neolithic occupat ions presumably were first of all intended for securing food for the animals ••• Thus we may assume that a small part of the burnt - off area was sown, whereas the greater part was left to itself. The black s urface quic kly bec ame green from the emerging herbs, bushes and trees, whose fresh l eaves would be wel come fodder for the catt le". ( 194 1 , pp29- 30 ) It will be not ed that the as sumption t hat large - scale clearings were nec essary fo r fodde r availability does rest on the view of the natural forest put forward in the early pollen diagrams . If the alternative view (put forward on the basis of ecol ogical expectations and not in conflict with modern pollen analysis) should be nearer the truth , then the necessity for large clearings appears to recede. It should have been poss ible to graze domestic animals on the undergrowth ( cf. Ada.ms 1975 ; Gri gson, this volume p299). Grassy grazing a reas under the trees would be a l ikely consequence of grazing (Troels Smith 1953; Tansley 1968). The process might have been helped by techniques such as ringbarking. The initial clearance might indeed have been a ide d by fire, eithe r to burn felled trees or to remove trees r ingbarked and l eft standing - but it would not seem necessary for this to occ ur cyc l ically , partic ularly if agriculture was on a more perma~ent bas is than that envisaged by the shifting cultivation theory. (c)

Denmark, 3l00 be - 2700 be. The earliest re l iable evidence for agriculture 1.n Denmark 1.s at

208

around 3 100 be ( Rowley-Comry 1980) . Such radiocarbon dates as are available fo r the start of the landnam in Denmark are all after 2700 be , The intervening 400 years have (if the e lm decline is ignored) little evidence for clearance, Fodder collection and grazing beneath the forest canopy must have been occurring in this period, and probably also in the (palynologically invisible) clearings where cereals would have been cultivated . Archaeological evidence testifies to the presence of both cereals and domestic animals, and some pollen of PZantago does, significant ly, go back to the start of the Neolithic (Troels - Smith 195 3 ) . The factors adduced by modern pollen analysis to account for the under- representation of pollen of the field layer mi ght be a r e ason why there is otherwise little evi dence of this activity in the pollen diagrams . Coles (1976) has suggested that the small clearings made by earl y farmers would be unlikely to register in pollen di-agrams; and Turner (1964) was quoted above to similar e ffect . Thi s rai se s the problem of precisely what the landnam phenomenon repres ents, why it should not occur until 400 radiocarbon years after the start of the Ne olithic, and why it should be so marked and sudden whe n it does oc cur, The work of Tauber has not so far been mentioned in this context . He has suggested that in one (Swiss) example the entire landnam phenomenon mi ght be the result of increased filtration of tree pollen due to a thickening of the lakeside vegetation , Use is made of complicated mathematical formulae, and the actual decrease in the pollen of the vari ous trees seen in the diagram is impressively close to what the formulae predict would occur if the lake level dropped allowing the shore vegetation to thicken. It is known that the lake level did drop, as a Neol ithic settlement was est ablishe d on the newly exposed area (Tauber 1965), The present writer is not competent to comment on the details of Tauber' s work . The problem is the greater for an archaeologist seeking to understand clearance, because, despite the fact that Tauber's paper was published 17 years ago and has been widely quoted in other contexts , hi s reinterpretation of the landnam phenomenon seems to have provoked little comment in the pollen analytical literature ,

4.

FINAL R~MARKS

To conclude, it is suggested that some views long held by archaeologist s concerning forests and their clearance have been superseded by rec ent developments in other fields, principally pollen analysi s. Atlanti c forests may not necessarily have been the hostile, forbiddi ng environments they have sometimes been made out to be . From the farmer 's point of view, it does not follow that the only good for est is a dead one. The arrival of farming may not have signalled such a sharp change as is sometimes envisaged - rather than abrupt, major destruction, the process may have involved the replace ment , within a grazing environment, of one set of animals by another, coupled with the gradual extension of areas cleared for fields. Tauber has provided one possible alternative explanation for the landnam. phase , a phenomenon which it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain as a necessary stage in the history of agriculture. That there should automatically be a phase of shifting cultivation at the

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start of the agricultural occupation of a region now has less support. Recent pollen ana lysi s is unable definitely to demonstrate the exist ence of such a phase in Europe . Study of shifting cultivation elsewhere in the world suggests that it everywhere seems to have a sound local e cologi cal basis. The mere fact that it is "primitive" is no argument for the existence of a similar phase in Europe, Many tropical forest soils are hardly amenable to any other form of cultivation than swidden (Bay-Petersen in press). Swidden clearances in northern Sweden and Finland went hand in hand with the cultivation of permanent infields, Infield soils were so poor that continuous cultivation demanded manuring. Animal grazing is severe ly limit ed in the coniferous northern forests, so clearance by fire is necessary there to provide grazing and also enable s a crop of rye to be grown (Rowley-Conwy 1981). Shifting cultivation e lsewhere in the world seems therefore to be a series of tactical·solutions to locai problems, not a remnant from some once worldwide stage. This paper has examined some of the implications of recent palynological work, as seen by an archaeologist whose first concern is the history of man in the environment , Dialogue between archaeology and its associated sciences is essential if archaeological views are to develop fruitfully. This contribution is written in an attempt to further such dialogue.

REFERENCES Adams, S.N. 197 5 'Sheep and cattle grazing in forests: Journal of Applied Ecology 12, pp143- 152.

a review' .

Andersen, S. Th . 1970 'The relative pollen productivity and pollen representation of North European trees, and correction factors for tree pollen spectra'. Danmarks Geologiske Unders¢gelse, Series II, No. 96, pp1 - 99 , Anders en, S. Th. 1973 'The differential pollen productivity of trees and its significanc e for the interpretation of a pollen diagram for a forested region'. In Birks, H.J.B. and West, .R.G. ( eds, ) Quaternary Plant Ecology. (Oxford: Blackwells) , pp 109- 115 . Andersen, S. Th. 1974 'Wind conditions and pollen deposition in a mixed deciduous fo re st . I . Wind conditions and pollen dispersal'. Grana Palynologia 14, pp57 - 63. Bay- Petersen, J.L. 1978 'Animal exploitation in Mesolithic Denmark'. In Mellars, P. (ed.) The Early Postglacial Settlement of Northern Europe. (London: Duckworth), pp115-145, Bay-Petersen, J.L. (in press) 'Ecological differences in early agriculture in tropical and temperate environments: the ecological implications' . In Mortensen, P . and S¢rensen, P, (eds . ) The Origins of Agriculture and Technology : east or west Asia?

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Birks, H. J .B., Deacon, J. and Peglar, S. 1975 'Pollen maps for the British Isles 5000 years ago'. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London , Series B, 189, pp87- 105 . Bos erup, E. Aldine ) .

·1965

Bourli~re , F . 196 3 African mammals' . pp43-5 4 .

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Bradley, R. 1978 The Prehistoric Settlement of Britain. Routledge and Kegan Paul).

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Bratton, 6.P. 197 5 'The effect of the European wild boar, on Gray Beech Forest in the Great Smoky Mountains'. Ecology 56, pp1356- 1366 . Burch, E.S. 1972 'The caribou/wild reindeer as a human resource'. American Antiquity 37 , pp339- 368. Clark, J . G.D . 19 52 Prehistoric Europe . (London : Methuen).

The Economic Basis.

Clark, J.G.D. 1968 'The economic impact of the change from late glacial to post - glaci a l conditions in northern Europe ' . Proceedings of the VIIIth Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sci ences, Ecology, . pp241 - 244 Clark, J.G . D. Press) .

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Mesolithic Prelude ,

(Edinburgh:

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Clarke, D. L. 1976 'Mesolithic Europe: the economic basis' . In Sieveking, G. de G. , Longworth, I.H. and Wilson, ICE . (eds . ) Problems in Economic and Social Archaeology, (London: Duckworth), pp448- 481. Coles , J . 1976 'Forest farmers: some archaeological, historical and exper imental evidence relating to the prehistory of Europe' . In de Laet, S. J. (ed.) Acculturation and Continuity in Atlantic Europe . (Bruges: De Tempel), pp59-66. Currier, P.J. a nd Kapp, R. O. 1974 'Local and regional pollen rain components at Davi s Lake, Montcalm county, Michigan' . Michigan Ac a demician VII, part 2, pp2 11 - 225. Duvi gneaud, P . and Denaeyer-de Smet, S. 1970 'Biological cycling of minerals in temperate deciduous forests' . In Reichle, D. (ed.) Analysi s of Temperate Forest Ecosystems. (London: Chapman and Hall, pp199-22 5 . Edwards, K.J. 1979 'Palynological and temporal inference in the context of prehistory with special reference to the evidence from lake and peat deposits' . Journal of Archaeological Science 6, pp255-270 ,

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Eriksen, P . 1980 'Capesh~j p~ T~singe 1 (German summary). Antikvariske Studier 4, pp31 - 48. Faegri, K. and Iversen, J. (Oxford: Blackwells). Fleming , A. history' .

1964

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1972 'The genesis of pastoralism in European pre World Archaeology 4, pp179- 191 .

Gilman, A. 1981 'The development of social stratification in Bronze Age Europe ' . Current Anthropology 22, pp1 - 23, Godwin, H. 1975 'History of the natural forests of Britain: establishment, dominance and destruction'. Philosophical Transacti~n s of the Royal Society of London, Series B 271, pp47- 67. Green, S . W. 1980 'Broadening least-cost models for expanding agricultural s ystems' . In Earle, T.K. and Christenson, A. L. (eds . ) Modelling Change in Prehistoric Subsistence Economics. (New York: Academic Press), pp209- 241. Handel, S. N. 1976 'Restricted pollen flow of two woodland herbs determined by ne utron-activation a nalysis'. Nature 260, pp422- 423. Iversen, J . 1941 'Landnam i Danrnarks stenalder: land occupation in Denmark's s tone age' . Danmarks Geologiske Unders~gelse, Series II, No . 66, pp1 - 68. Iversen, J . 1949 'The influence of prehistoric man on vegetation'. Danmarks Geologiske Unders{igelse , Series IV,Bd3, No . 6, pp5 - 25. Iversen, J. 1960 'Problems of the early post - glacial forest development in Denmark. Danmarks Geologiske Unders~gelse, Series IV, Bd4 , No. 3, pp1-32. Iversen, J . 1973 'The development of Denmark's nature since the last glaci a l' . Danmarks Geologiske Unders¢'gelse, Series V, No. 7c, pp7- 126 . Jacobi, R.M ., Ta llis, J.H. and Mellars, P.A. 1976 'The southern Pennine Me s olit hic and the ecological record'. Journal of Archaeologic al Science 3, pp307 - 320. Levin, D.A. and Kerster, H.W. 1974 'Gene flow in seed plants'. Evolutionary Biology ';, pp13S - 220. Mellars, P . 1975 'Ungulate populations, economic patterns and the Mesolithic landscape'. In Evans, J.G., Limbrey, S, and Cleere, H. (eds,) The Effect of Man on the Landscape: the Highland Zone. (London: Counc il for British Archaeology, Research Report 11) pp49- 56 .. Mellars, P. 1976 'Fire, ecology , animal populations and man; study of some ecological relationships in prehistory' . Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 42, pp15 - 45,

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Mellars, P. and Reinhardt, S.C. 1978 'Patt erns of Mesolithic land- use in southern England: a geological perspective'. In Mellars, P. ( e d . ) The Early Postglacial Settlement of Northern Europe, (London: Duckworth), pp243- 293. Milisauskas, S.

1978

European Prehistory.

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Academic Press) .

Mit chell , G. F. 19 56 'Post-boreal pollen-diagrams from Irish raisedbogs'. Proc e edings of the Royal Irish Academy 57B , pp185 - 251. Moore, P.D. 1976 260, pp 388- 389.

'How far does pollen travel?' ,

Nature (London)

Moore , P.D . . 1980 'Resolution limits of pollen analysis as applied to archaeology' . MASCA Journal 1, pp118- 120 , Naval Int elli gence Division 1944 Denmark. Handbook BR 509) .

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Newell, R. 1973 ''I'he post -glacial adaptations of the indigenous population of the northwest European Plain'. In Kozlowski, S.K, ( e d . ) The Me solithic in Europe. (Warsaw: University Press), pp399-44o . Ovington, J , D. 1955 'Studies of the deve lopment of woodland c ondit ions unde r different trees. III The ground flora.I Journal of Ecolog;y:_ 43 , pp1 - 21 . Ovington, J . D. 1964 'Prairie , savanna and oakwood systems at Cedar Creek'. I n Cri sp, D.J. (ed.) Grazing in Terrestrial and Marine Environments, (Oxford: Blackwell) , pp43-53. Peck, R. M. 1973 'Pollen budget studies in a small Yorkshire catchment' . In Birks, H. J . B. and We st , R.G . ( e ds, ) Quaternary Plant Ecology. (Oxford: Blackwell), pp43-60, Rackham, 0.

1980

Anci ent Woodland.

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Edward Arnold) .

Raynor, G.S. , Hayes, J.V. and Ogden, E. C. 1974 'Particle dispersion into and within a forest' . Boundary- Layer Meteorology 7 , pp429- 456 . Reynolds , P . J . 1977 ' Slash and burn experiment'. Journal 134, pp307-318.

Archaeological

Reynolds , P. J . 1981 'Deadstock and livestock' . In Mercer, R. (ed. ) Farming Practice in British Prehistory . (Edinburgh: University Press) , pp97-122. Rodin, L. E. and Bazilevich, N. I . 1967 in Terrestrial Vegetation . (London:

Product ion and Mineral Cycling Oliver a nd Boyd) .

Rose, F . 1974 'The epiphytes of oak'. Perring, F . H. (eds. ) The British Oak, of the Brit i sh Isles), pp250-273,

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Rothamsted Experimental Station 1970 Details of the Classical and Long- term Experiments up to 1967, (Harpenden: Rothamsted Experimental Station). Rowley- Conwy, P.A. 1980 Continuity and Change in the Prehistoric Economies of Denmark 3700 be to 2300 be , (Cambridge University: unpublished Ph . D. thesis) . Rowley - Cornry, P.A. 198 1 'Slash and burn in the temperate European Neolithic' . In Mercer, R. (ed.) Farming Practic e in British Prehistory. (Edinburgh: University Press), pp85-96. Rowley- Conwy, P.A. (in press) 'A review of the European Mesolithic'. In Green,_S . and Zvelebil, M, (eds . ) Bridging the Atlantic. Russell, E.J. and Voelcker, J.A . 1936 at the Woburn Experimental Station.

Fifty Years of Field Experiments (London: Longmans, Green).

Simmons, I.G., Dimbleby, G.W. and Grigson, C. 198 1 'The Mesolithic'. In Simmons, I .G. and Tooley , M.J . (eds.) The Environment in British Prehistory. (London: Duckworth), pp82- 124 . Smith, A.G . 1981 'The Neolithic'. · In Simmons, I . G. and Tooley, M.J . (eds , ) The Environment in British Prehistory. (London: Duckworth), pp 125- 209. Steensberg, A. 1979 Draved, an Experiment in Stone Age Agriculture. Burning, Stming and Harvesting, (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark). Strandgaard, H. 1967 'En unders~gelse over kronvildets tilpasning til det dans ke lmlturlandskab'. In Jensen, B. (ed.) Unders~gelser over Kronvildtet ( Cervus elcrphus L) i Danmark. (Denmark: Kal~ Vildtbiologisk Station). pp9-76. Tans ley, A.G. (Cambridge:

·1939 The British Isles and their Vegetation. University Press).

Tans ley, A.G. 1968 Britain's Green Mantle. 2nd edition revis ed by Proctor, M. F.C. (London: George Allen and Unwin). Tauber, H. 1965 'Differential pollen dispers ion and the interpretation of pollen diagrams'. Danmarks Geologiske Unders~gelse Series II , No . 89, pp1 - 69. Tauber, H. 1977 'Investigations of aerial pollen transport in a forested area' . Dansk Botanisk Arkiv 32, pp1-·121, Troels-Smith, J. 195 3 'Erteb~lle culture - farmer culture'. Aarb~ger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1953, pp5-62. Troels-Smith, J . 1960 'ErtebJlletidens fangstfolk og bJnder'. Fra Nationalmuse ets Arbejdsmark 1960, pp95 - 119 , Turner , J . 1964 'Surface sample analysis from Ayrshire, Scotland'. Pollen et Spores 6, pp583-592,

214

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Wodzicki, K.A. 1950 Introduced Mammals of New Zealand. An Ecological and Economic Survey. (Wellington, New Zealand: Bulletin of Department of Scientific and Industrial Research 98).

215

..

ACORNS FOR THE ANCESTORS : THE PREHISTORIC EXPLOITATION OF WOODLAND IN THE WEST MEDITERRANEAN J .G . Lewthwaite INTRODUCTION The woodland the lack consider

&tudy of the human exploitation of Post - glacial Mediterranean is not onl y deficient in data, but far more compromised by of inter- disciplinary communication and an unwillingness to models of land- use not advocated by Hesiod or Columella .

The assumpt ions, biases and flawed techniques which D. L. Clarke (1978) detected in the carnivorous model of the Mesolithic are par alleled by the traditional relegation of woodland to a negative or passive position. The exploitation of arboreal r esour ces is anticip ated on a large s cale only in the 'Mesolithic' , except in the case o f such favoured spec ies as the olive and the vine, the rediscovery of which in the Bronze Age of the Aegean and perhaps Almeria, in the guise of Medit erranean polycu lture, sparked off the emergence of civili zati on locally (cri t ici zed in Lewthwait e 198 2b) . Attitudes t o woodland are inextr icably bound up with attitudes to the nat u re, period and place of change in the ar chaeological and historic a l record s. On the one hand, there is a surprising amount of common ground between the writings of Kuhnholtz - Lo rdat (e . g. 1958), with their t heme of the necessity of a balance between ager, saZtus and siZva continually threatened by the depredations of incendiary pastorali sts a nd voracious goats, and the early palaeoeconomic studies , such as Barker (1975) or Jarman and Webley (1975) with their equally constrained appr oach to allegedly optimal patter ns of land- use, detectable th rough c atchment analysis . For the latters' study of the Capitan ata Neolithic sites, the only consideration applied to the site environment is the potential f or cereal produc t ion under openfield condit ions, and the availabili t y of all - year grazing. No es timation o f the cost of clearing woodland, or of the advantages of retaining an arborea l component in the catchment for browse, fire wood and timber production i s g iven (cf . criticism in Lewthwaite 1981) . Ba rker h as r ecognized t he significance of woodland in Central Italy as a source of browse for ruminants and pannage for pigs , but without recommending any modifications in the technique (1975, 1981), presumabl y because he uses it only as an adjunct to extensive studies of on-s ite information such a~ plant remains and bones. The one context in which woodland has been considered in any detail is in the case of allegedly 'marginal zones' such as the Garrigues of Languedoc, Speciali;ts differ as to whether the area was originally densely for ested, with or without deep soils , before the introduction of extensive, transhumant ovicaprine pastoralism (Delano Smith 1972). Such specialists are agreed, however, in anticipating that the prehistory of the region , like its history (Barry and Le Roy Ladurie 1962; 217

Marcelin 1941) will reflect the r egion's inherent subordination to exogenous sources of change: the saw- tooth pa tte rn of woodland clearance and recovery reflecting not the fluctuations of local adaptation but the periodic attack on the forest by communities from the adjacent and often 'saturated' plains . In the case of the well - known 'Chalcolithic' s ettlement cycle in the later third millermium be, the settlement pattern is typically explained in terms of a dispersion closely fitting the distribution of small basins suitable for arable within the mass o f enci rcling woodland (Gasc6 1976), In a similar manner, palynologically- based _a ccounts of vegetat ional [email protected] do not consider an t hropogenic effects on woodland to be noticeable in the Mediterranean until the 'Sub - atlantic' in some cases (Reille 1977) though others are prepared to accept clearance as early in · the fifth millennium be (e.g . Triat - Laval 1980 , p84) . Clarke's suggestion of a 'selective' manipulation of woodland in the earlier Post - glacial, which does not imply landnam type clearance horizons (Clarke 1978), is as yet uninvestigated by palynologists, whose techniques appear to be insufficiently prec i se t o detect such subtle quan tit a tive modific a tions . Co - opera tion between Mediterranean palynologist s and vegetational historians is urgently needed to estab lish the ,modern palynological representation of the managed forest landscapes termed 'mon te ' (Humbe rt 1980) or 'montado' (Silbert 1978). ALTERNATIVE, HISTORICAL , ETHNOGRAPHIC MODELS OF WOODLAND EXPLOITATION Mediterr ane an archaeologist s rely on a far too re stricted range of concrete ima ges of land- use; t hese are basically three: (1) cereals grown in ro tat ion i n fie ld s; (2) 'Mediterranean polyculture' whether or not implying coltura promi scua; (3) transhumant ovicaprine grazing (Lewthwaite 1981). Th e first two appear to project complexes of features which may have been developed gradually over long periods, and which may not be divorced from the social context of ranked or class societies as easily as is imagined, In the case of cereal cul tivation in homogeneous stands, Cooter (1978) stresses the ecological perils , whil e Delille (1977) points out the characteristically rapid and unbalanced, by age a nd sex, consumption of labour in h i storic areas of monocul t u r e , and the di ff iculties of small family-sized units subsisting from cereal and small stock cultivation alone . It is reasonable to suspect that recorded instances of cereal monoculture, even when apparently carried out by communities with strict regulat ions of farming pra ct ices , in fact take place ve ry much in a wider hierarchical context: t he egalitarianism of such codes being merely a tactical adaptati on t o a strat egic situation directed for other interests (c f, Del ano Smith 1979 ; Silbert 1978; Gambi 1975), 'Mediterranean polyculture' in the sense of the cultivation of the 'Mediterranean triad', with its evocation of the family farms of the mezzadria. belt of Central Italy, is often assumed to be a basically ad apt ive str at egy ai med at subsis tence . Wi thin t his s trategy the deep- rooted tree crops would balance the diet and complement the climatically vulne r able cere a ls without overstretching the labour requirements of small units of population. Even so the potential for the marketing of surplus was always present (cf . Lewthwaite 1982b). However, all instances of peasants engaged in polyculture, even in remote locations , appear to show some evidence of central authorities with a vested interest in potentially high- value , low- bulk goods. 218

Suoh goods require processing and storage facilitie s which are best done on a large scale in a centralized operation (Forbes and Foxhall 1978) . Gambi stres sed (1975) the extent to which the organization of such family concerns by urban inter ests is simply the substitution of a 'putting- out' system for the soit of 'factory model' for which the analogy would be the plantation system. Bisson (1977) has ident ified the succession of such complexes of crops, patterns of settlement and l and- use in harmony with the social evolution within Mallorca in the Middle Ages. Significantly, the replacement of cereal mono culture by various tree crops such as olives and the break- up of 'latifundi a' did not imply any lessening of the peasants' dependence, To summarize, we cannot assume that either system is appropriate to the purpor ted egalitarianism of the communities of earli er prehis tory. The field model of cereal cultivation suffers from the addit ional suspicion that the complex of broadcast sowing, the use of animal traction for ploughing, raking over seed, and the transportation of the resulting crop, and the rotation of crop and worked fallow may be a cost- cutting exercise appropriate to a second stage in the development of agricu lture after garden- scale con tinuous management, This conclusion was arrived at independently by the agric ultural his torian Sigaut (1975) and the archaeologist Sherrat t (1981). There is an ethno graphic instance from Sardinia of such cer eal - gar dening on fertile riverine s oils (Che rchi Paba 1974, pp351 - 355). The e xploitation of woodland as a res ource in its own right, as opposed to a mere margin of cultivation, does not appear to have attracted the attention which it deserves from archaeologists, given the growing body of studies of historical and ethnographic instances. The evidence can be grouped under four headings: (1) woodland management for human consumpti on; (2) woodland management for animal consumption ; (3) and (4) maquis or macchia management for human and animal consumption respectively. The demarc ation of woodland and ma cchia is complex on both scientific and ethno- scientifi c grounds (Silbe rt 1978; Humbert 1980) but appears to be universally accepted, (1) The management of chestnut forest in the West Mediterranean is a fascinating subject which will be dealt with elsewhere. The exploit ation of evergreen oak forest for human consumption is encountered in classical and historical texts, but rare ly is the detail sufficient to distin guish between a genuine staple and an occasional or 'famine' food recorded because of rare and unusual instance s. However, the consumption of acorn bread pe rsisted until relatively recently in the Sardinian district of Ogliastr a (Fig. 2B) and the evidence for this has been conveniently s ynthesized by Usai (1969) , noting the techniques for tannin e x tracti on and the nutritional value , while Flori (1975) has collected the far less extensive Corsican material . A number of puzzles re main to be solved by co- operative work , such as the extent to which 'swe eter' i .e. less tannin-rich strains of holm oak, such as the so- called 'bellota' variety of the Maghreb (Roubet 1980, pp442 - 443), have been developed by selecti on, and whether these could be recogniz ed in carbonized form. (2) The managemen t of evergreen oak forest (holm oak and cork oak) and to a less er extent deciduous oak forest, where it remains, for swine raising has an extensive literature (Parsons 1962 ; Torrent et al. 1962 ; Silber t 1978; Humbe rt 1980). Insofar as the 'acorn- hog economy'

219

and the grass - sheep economy have clashed, as in South- West Iberia (Fig. lA), it is interesting that the former more than held its own; even against the Mesta. Reille suggests that in Corsica, from the fourteenth century AD onwards, the formerly extensive deciduous oak zone of the middle altitude mountains (Fig. 2A) were simply eaten away by an excessive pig population (Reille 1977 , p336) which, unlike the Iberian pig population was most probably under extremely loose supervision, Asole (1950) suggests that deciduous oak was formerly more common in Sardinia, though never as extensive as in Corsica (Fi g , 2A ); significantly in areas still with a tradition of raising swine. The extent to which forest grazing and browsing contributed to the management of ruminants ha s been relative ly little studied, though the 'Man and the Biosphere' programme is beginning to investigate this. Viale makes the obvious but little appreciated point that forest browse occupies volume while gras.sy swards cover area; the amount of forage suspended abov e the forest floor is oft en far greater than that grown on it (Viale 1977). (3) The ethno - botanical wa rk on maquis is of high quality though unevenl y distributed (Figs. 1 and 2) (The Filosorma: Conrad 1977, Viale 1977 , Sowo and Cuenca 1977; the Niolu : Grison 1980; Corsica generally: Simi 1974; the Causse de Blandas: Durand- Tullou 1972; the mountains we st of Granada: Humbert 1980; Southern Portugal: Silbert 1978; the Argolid : Forbes, H.A., 1976, Forbes and Koster 1976, Forbes, M., 1976a, 1976b). Most of the lis~s of species gathered, however, refer to relishes or medicaments, The most important aspect of the human exploitation of maquis turns on the characteristic fire - created temporary clearances for cereal crops (the rompudes of Languedoc: Marcelin 19l1l; the rotes of Mallorca: Rossell6 Verger 1964; the ro~as and roturas of Iberia: Silbert 1978 , Humbert 1980) . It is tempting to project the pattern of land- use into prehistory in view of the archaic and marginal nature of the populations, their technology and the environment ; but this again may be a question of an adaptation to social rather than ecological marginality; often these communities appear to be share-cropp in g or otherwise put to work as landless labour ers in t imes when the marginal cost of maquis crops justified the effort for the landowner.

(4) Maquis animals are usually assumed to be small ruminants, part icularly goats or rustic races of sheep, but it may be cattle which are the best adapted to maquis in the long run (an aspect of the 'Man and the Biosphere' project conducted by .Institut National de Recherche Agronomique researchers). Cattle of rustic races of the Tyrrhenian islands and Ibe r ia are now rapidly being lost to the gene pool (cf. Viale 1977, p6l ; Humbert 1980, p39). It is likely that research will reveal the exi stence of forms of animal management exploiting the imbestita (home range instinct) of the animal (Ravis - Giordani 1975), as in the case of small stock. As yet there is very little research on the complementarity of different species grazing in rotation or in parallel on maquis, though this is obviously an important question for the archaeologist. To st.irrnnarize: there is a convergence of interest on the part of the geographers, historians, ecologists, ethno-botanists, zootechnicians and planners on the subject of Mediterranean woodland management which permits arc haeologists to consider the possibilities of other forms of land- use in prehistory.

220

/

0

l

(CORK OAK)

[illl P:/

L_:J

Fructiferous

OUERCUS ILEX (HOLr.l OAK) SPAR SE Q, ILEX

ik

Wood lands of"-SW. Spain and Port~gal AFTER PARSONS, 1962

V";1 [[]]J] OUERCUS SUBER W

OUER CUS ILE X

THE MODERN DISTRIBUTION OF SOME EVERGREEN OAKS Fi g . 1.

The mode rn distribution of some evergreen oaks in the Mediterranean . Southern Iberia (1A) is the single largest area of evergreen oak forest at present, and the area where explo it ation is most intensive and well- documented. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence of acorn exploitation stretches from the Ga rri gues of Languedoc (e,g.the Causse de Blandas) to the Ma ghreb (e . g. the Grotte Capeletti).

221

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE The archaeological evidence for woodland management is not merely very slim and unevenly distributed, bu.t in the case of acorn consump tion, as a concrete example, methodologically precarious. Clearly the discovery of x charred acorns as against y charred cereal grains cannot be regarded as a realistic meas ure of the significance of acorn consumption as a long term component of an economy. This is especially preca rious when there is some re ason to suspect deliberate spatial non- randomness in the distribution of species in a site . Hubbard (1980 , pp61 and 64- 65) notes that wheat and pistachio nuts are repeatedly found together because the nuts are used to flavour the cereal, and that both are over- represented relative to other species because of the need for parching and hence the greater like lihood of charri ng. We need to test the assertion that acorn consumption occurred eit&er prior to cereal cultivation, or as a poor sub stitute for cereals at times of population resource imbalance. To do this we need a sample adequate to de te ct trends in time, concentrations in space and some measure of selection against an independent (e .g. palynol ogical) assessment of acorn availability. Finally , as Gage points out (Gag e 1979) human groups compete with other species for such resources, and may choose either to maximize consumption as a carbohydrate resource or channel the resource through an additional trophic level because of a preference, or need , for animal protein. However, with the caution that the data base is precarious, some tentative assessment can be made concerning the consumption of acorns, pine and hazel nuts in the Mediterranean in prehistory . The evidence for Mesolithic exploitation of nuts in the West Mediterranean is in fact surprisingly slim and does not bear out Clarke's (1978) predict ion. On the contrary, the evidence for acorns on early sites is strikingly contemporary with the evidence for the firs t cereals and the first evidence for '.domesticated' livestock forming the majority of the faunal sample. Both in the Maghreb (Grotte Capeletti , near Khanguet Si Mohamed Tahar in the Aures mountains : Roubet 1980) and in the Corbieres (Abri Jean Gros: Gasc6 1979) acorns are found (Fig. 1) from the middle of the fifth millennium bc,a period of general economic transformation (Lewthwaite 1982a ) . In both cases, the sites appear to have been occupied in the warm season by transhumant ovicaprine-exploi ti ng groups from lower altitudes (Grotte Capeletti at 1540m , Jean Gros at c.500m) . During the fourth millennium be, the sites of the Midi do not yield much evidence of the consumption of plant foods other than cereals, though acorns and water chestnuts are very common both in Southern Spain (the Cueva Chica , Los Murcielagos, Zuheros : Phillips 1975, p71 ; Cueva de Nerja: Phillips 1975, pl06) and in Northern Italy, specifically the Po Plain lakeside sites (Isola Virginia: Phillips 1975, pp76 - 77; Lagozza di Besnate: Phillips 1975 , ppll7 - 118) . These areas represent the arid and the humid extremes of the cereal-growing spectrum. The real rise of acorn consumption, as indicated by on- site finds, appears to take place in the later third and earlier second millennia bc,specifically in the Garrigues of Languedoc and the Tyrrhenian islands, usually in the fortified sites which become characteristic during this period . A Portuguese example is the concentrations of acorns found at Vila Nova de Sao Pedro (Do Pa~o 1954). In the case of the Fontbuxien garrigue sites, it is inter-

222

esting t hat aco r n s , haze l nut s and the r ema i ns of rnaqui s sp e cie s such as Arbutus unedo a r e f ound, a ga i n associa t ed wi th a predomi nan t ly ovicaprine rather than por c i ne or bovine f aunal component (at Bouss argues ; Colomer e t a l . 1980 , Guther z , per s.connn. ; Fon tbouisse culture generally : Ga s c'6 1976, p72) . Ga sco and Guther z a r gue that the Chal colithic sit e s of t he Garr igue s were loca t ed always i n the vicinity of such ar abl e ba s ins a s exis t ed a lthough the grea t er par t of a notional c a tchment woul d con s ist of oak fo r est or scrub and maquis. The interpretat ion of t hi s c ulture has oscilla t ed s ucces s ively f r om pas tor alists of t he p l ate aux t o c er e a l cul t iva tors and i t is unhelp f ul to suggest t ha t t he cons ump ti on o f woodland res ource s s uch as acorns formed a third po s s i ble s t apl e. Rather, t hi s s ugge st s a broad- spectrum economy bas ed on all th re e gr oups of r e s our ces, which in turn poses the probl em of t he appar ently meteoric career of the Chalcolithic groups of ·the Garr i gue s . I f i ndeed only the c l ayey or marly potjes were being cult i vated for ce r e als , it is ha rd to envisage how the old question of a po ss ible de gradat ion of the Ga rrigues proper can be at all releva nt, unles s t he a r able component incor pora ted both an infield and a not i ona l out field of shifting fi re- clear ed agriculture and sheep grazing. Ce r t a i nly t he pr edominan ce of sheep over more obvious ly for e s t--ada p t ed s pec i es r emains a pr obl em, since they are less effici e nt c onve r t e r s of pl ant food into me a t t han pigs or ca t tle and woolly races of s he e p we re not avail able west of t he Aegean till the I r on Age (M . L . Ryde r, pe r s . corrLm . ) . The ev i dence for milking sheep i s a s yet h ar d l y conclus ive . The o t her a r e a for an e spe c i a l concentration of evidence is the Tyrrheni an Ar ch i pe l a go - Cor s i ca and Sa r dinia (F i g .2C) . In the cas e of the f orrner , ev i de n ce i s now a ccumul ating t ha t t he l a ter Neolithic or Chalcoli t h i c up surge i n s i t e numbe rs prev i ous ly regarded as proof of a sp e c ifi c a lly agr i cul t ur al e xpans i on may re flect a broad spectr um of r esour ce explo i t a t i on i nc lud i ng the cons umption of woodland re sources such a s a c or n s , both di r ectly by human s and i ndirectly through livestock . A gr e a t de al of empha s is has been pl a c ed on the vast numbers of grind i ng i mplemen t s , both portable and f ixed (i . e. cupules in the rock) f ound at s i tes of th i s period , s uch as Monte Lazzo, with a character is t ic l oca t ion on hill s overlook i n g one or more coastal plains sui table for a gr i cul t ur e (Weis s and De sneige s 1974) . The interpret ation ha s f ocus ed , a s i n the case of the Garrigues, on the potential of t he pl a ins for a r abl e , even though t he most fertile soils of t oday probab l y con s i s t of youn ge r fill not av a ilable in the later third mill e nn i um . Aga i n , t he pr esence of grind i n g i mplements does not imply c e r eals , Commandan t Caziot suggested that some found in Cor sica we re 'doubt l ess us ed t o gr ind the dr i ed ches t nuts of which a great quant ity :was s t i ll produced in the island, a s much for the nourishment of humans a s f or t hat of certain animals' (Caziot 1897, p469). Recen t ev i dence from t he Terrina IV site at Al eria (Jehasse 1978, 1980; Camps 1979) , an area with a particularly rich catchment for ar able wi t h very little rug ged terrain, suggests the processing of acorns into f lour (e t hnogr a phic analogies for ceramic vessels) and the e xplo itati on of ' dome s t i c ' swi ne mo r phologi c a l l y very close to 'wild' pi gs. Thi s suggests the sort of free - range swine herding characteristic of Corsica even today. In the succeeding 'Torrean' period of the second millennium, the char acteristic Br onze Age settlements yield not only ca r boniz ed holm- oak acorns in large numbers (at Filitosa : Gr osj e an 1961 , p53,p79; at Foce: Grosjean 1958, p30; at Capula : Lanfr anchi 1978 , pl47, p270; a t Cucur uzzu village: Jehasse

223

Fig. 2.

EVERGREEN

DECIDUOUS

0

100km

CHESTNUTS AN D ACO RN S

PREH ISTOR IC ACORN FINDS

0

@,

ACORNS

PROCESSING

EOUIPMENT

ACORN

CARBONIZED

Divergences in the exploitation of the former deciduous oak forest zone in Corsica and Sardinia. The formerly extensive deciduous oak forest of middle altitude Corsica (A) has been largely transformed into managed chestnut woods (B). The predominantly evergreen oak forest of Sardinia has largely been cleared for cereals and pasture, though in the isolated Ogliastra (B) the human consumption of acorns has persisted until very recently. The finds of charred acorns and acorn processing equipment confirm the ecological and ethnographic unity of S. Corsica and the Gallura ( C).

EVERGREEN AND DECIDUOU S

D

~

MONTANE

1980, p559) but a range of cerami cs including the flat plates suitable for making ac orn bread. The same artifacts and charred acorn finds recur acros s the straits of Bonifacio in Nuragh ic sites in Sardinia, particularly in the Gallura , which Lilliu desc ribes as forming an 'ecolo gical and anthropo-ethnological unity with Corsica' (Lilliu 1968, p32) . Finds of specifically holm- oak acorns and plates (tegami) are noted by Cantu from the Nuraghe 'La Prisciona', Arzachena (Cantu 1966 , pp240- 241 ) alongside vessels ethnographically interpreted as suitable for yoghourt (mizzuraddu, gioddu ) manufacture (Contu 1966, p212) . Puglisi and Castaldi emphasize the pastoral aspect of the Gallura (Puglisi and Castaldi 1966) drawing on the location of sites in areas unsuitable for arable and on ethnographic anal ogies for a class of Megalithic monument . Lilliu considering the same area, emphasizes the landscape of deciduous and holm oak (Lilliu 1968, p32). During the excavations of the Nuraghe Albucciu, Ferrarese Ceruti found not only large quan tities of charred acorns in a living space but also a complex of mortars, pestles, tegami, milk boilers and spindle- who r ls (Fe rrarese Ceruti 1962 , ppl76- 196) which again suggest an un- anticipated integration of dairy pastoralism and acorn collect ion. Finally, palynological evidence thr oughou t the We st Mediterranean (Reill e et al. 1980; Pons and Vernet 1971) suggests a pattern from North Africa to the Midi o f an early Holocene predominance of deciduous oak forest (Q uercus pubescens) modified pa rticu larly during the third millemium be by human action ( fire , cutting and grazing) so as t o favour the extensi on of the evergreen oaks (Q. ilex., Q. suber) previously thought to represent the vegetational climax. Indeed in Corsica there is evidence fo r an ear ly Holocene primary macchia , especially of Erica arborea, preceding , rather than succeeding, the expansion of the evergreen oaks at low altitude . Since it is pre cisely in the ':: t:.ird millennium be t h at from Co rsica and Languedoc comes the clearest evidence of acorn consumption, a correl ation between evergreen acorn consumption and the development of evergreen woodland is highly suggestive (Figs. 2A, 2C): the question is essentially one of the purpose of the modification of the landscape. Was the produc tion of an acorn crop the intention or merely the accident al spin- off from the patter n of agricultural and pastoral land- use perhaps deve loped on the plains and extended only in this period into plateaux and hills? If arable activity was as localized as is often beli eved ( i.e. in the fertile patches of t he Garrigues and the coastal plains of Cors ica and perhaps the Gallura) why was the re such an extensive impact on the forest hinterland? Does this suggest a larger reliance on fire - cleared outfield arable than is currently supposed? There appears to be a contradiction be tween the dispersed pattern of settleme nt implyin g an alve olar and limited modification of the landscape, and the palynological picture , which is unlikely to be resolved either by additional on- site data (a corns , cereals , sheep bones) or by offsite evidence (pollen, catchment analysis). Possibly the comparison of the total body of evidence with known historical situations where both environmental, archaeological and literary source s are available will resolve this conundrum. What we can say is that the 'acorn- sheep' coincidence occurs both in the later fifth and the later third millennia be. On both occasions the context is a period of major cultural re organization and apparent population growth and expansion, part icularly into montane areas with evidence of transhumance. Conversely the fourth millennium be shows a generally different pattern of selective lowland

225

village settlement often close to r ivers and lagoons (cf. Delano Smith 1972). This sugges ts that, as in the Middle Ages, woodland resource exploita ti on is correlated not so much with a low level of culture but with a peri od of instability in wh ich the ascription of cause and effect to environmental, demographic and social variables may be anticipated to be extremely difficult.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to th ank the following scholais who generously provided rare offprints and took the trouble to reply to queries ; Francois Flori, Xavie r Gutherz, Guy Jalut, Jean Jehasse, Diego Moreko , Armand Pon s and Maurice Rei11e : especially Andre Humbert, for a copy of his i mpo r tant work on the monte. Mrs. Val Miller has transformed scrawl into te xt , John Howell sketches into art. I am grateful to Ri chard Har rison for his scholarly advice and Martin Bell for unfailing edi t ori al patience .

REFERENCES Asole , A. 1950 'Le aree di diffusione antiche e recenti della querc ia e del castagno in Sar degna.' Atti XV Congresso Geografico Italiano 1, pp 291 - 298 . Barker, G. 197 5 'Prehistor ic territories and economies in Central Italy . ' In Hi ggs, E.S . (ed . ) Palaeoeconomy (Cambridge : University Pres s ) pplll - 175 . Barker , G, 1981 'Stability and change in prehistoric Central Italy . ' In Barker , G. and Hodges R. (eds . ) Archaeology and Italian Society (Oxford : British Archaeological Reports International Series 102) pp 215 - 22 3 , Barry, J.P . and Le Roy Ladurie , E. 1962 'Histoire agricole et phytogeograp hie' Annales - Economies, Societes , Civilisations 17(3) , pp4 34-447. A

Bisson , J. 1977 La terre et l'homme aux iles Balear es Proven ce: Edisud ) .

(Aix- en

Camps, G. 1979 'La prehistoire clans la region d'Aleria.' Archeologi a Co rs a 4, ppS-21. Caziot, Cdt . 1897 'Decouverte~ d'objets prehistoriques et protohistorique s, faites clans l'ile de Corse . ' Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologi e de Paris 4(8), pp463 - 476. Cherchi Paha, F . 1974 Evoluzione storica dell'attivit~ industriale agricola caccia e pesca in Sardegna (Cagliari: Regione Autonoma Sarda) . Clarke, D.L. 1978 Duckworth) .

Mesolithic Europe - The economic basis 226

(London:

Colomer, A., Coularou, J., Gutherz, X. and Vallon, J. 1980 'L'enceinte en pierre s s~ches de Boussargues,Argelliers, Herault.' In Guilaine, J. (ed,) ~roupe de Veraza et la fin des temps Neolithiques clans le Sud de la France et la Catalogne (Paris : Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique) pp257 - 262. Conrad , M. 1977 'Le maquis de Filosorma et essai d'ethnobotanique.' Bulletin de la Soci~t& des Sciences Historiques et Naturelles de la Corse 625 (18:4) , ppl9 - 25 . Can tu, E. 1966 'Considerazioni su un saggio di scavo al nuraghe "La Prisciona" di Arzachena.' Studi Sardi 19 (1964 - 5), ppl49 - 260. Cooter, W. 1978 'Ecological dimensions of Medieval agrarian systems,' Agricultural His to ry 52(4), pp458- 477 and corrnnents pp478- 487. Delano Smith, C. 1972 'Late Neolithic settlement, land- use and Garrigue in the Mon t pellier region, France.' Man 7(3), pp397 - 407. Del ano Smith, C. Press).

1979

Western Mediterranean Europe

(London: Academic

Delille , G. 1977 Agricoltura e demografia nel Regno di Napoli nei secoli XVIII e XIX (Naples: Guida editore) . Do Paco, A. 1954 b ,.., de Sao Pedro . ' pp279·- 359 .

1

Sementes pre - hist6ricas do Castro de Vila Nova Ana i s,Academia Portuguesa da Historia 2(5),

Durand- Tullou, A. 1972 'Role des vegetaux dans la vie de l 'honnne au temps de la civilisation traditionelle. 1 Journal d'Agriculture Tropicale et Botanique Appliquee 19(6- 7), pp 222 - 248. Ferrarese Ce r uti , M. L. 1962 'Nata preliminare alla I e alla II campagna di scavo nel nuraghe Albucciu, Arzachena, Sassari.' Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche 17 , ppl61 - 204 . Flori, F . 1975 'Utilisation de la glandee .' Unpublished Ms. pres ented to the 'Journees d'itude s ur le Filosorma, Societe des Sciences Historiques et Naturelles de la Corse.' (Bastia: the author). Forbe s, I-LA. 1976 'We have a li ttl e of everything: the ecological basis of s ome agricultural practices in Methana, Trizinia.' In Dimen , M. and Friedl, E. (eds.) Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus (New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 268) , pp236- 250 . -

··-

- - -··-"' -

· · ·-

Forbes, H.A. and Foxhall, L. 1978 'The queen of all trees: preliminary notes on the archaeology of the olive.'. Expedition 21(1) , pp37 - 45) . - - - --- -

-·

-

--

- -

iorbes,' H.A, and Koster, H.A. 1976 'Fire, axe and plough; Human influence on local plant communities in the Southern Argolid .' In Dimen, M. and Friedl, E. (eds . ) Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus (New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Science s 268), ppl09 - 126 .

227

Forbes, M.H.C. 1976a 'Farming and foraging in prehistoric Greece: a cultural ecological perspective.' In Dimen, M, and Friedl, E, (eds,) Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus (New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 268), ppl27 - 142, Forbes, M.H.C, 1976b 'Gathering in the Argolid: a subsistence subsystem in a Greek agricultural community,' In Dimen, M, and Friedl, E. (eds,) Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus (New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 268), pp2512611'

Gage, T,B, 1979 'The competitive interactions of man and deer in prehistoric California,' Human Ecology 7(3), pp253-268, Gambi, L. 1975 'Strutture rurali e conseguente paesistica come risultato di rivalita'. fra campi opposti di forze sociali (considerazioni per l'Italia).' In I Paesaggi rurali Europei (Perugia: Deputazione di Storia Patriaper l'Umbria, Appendice al Bolletino 12), pp225-236. Gasco, J, 1976 La conrrnunaute paysanne de Fontbouisse (Toulouse: Centre d'Anthropologie des Societes Rurales, Archives d'Ecologie Prehistorique 1), Gasc6, J, 1979 'Le neolithique de l'abri Jean- Gros, Determination vegetales et techniques de consommation possibles ou probables,' In Guilaine, J, (ed.) L'Abri Jean-Gros (Toulouse: Centre d'Anthropologie des Societes Rurales), pp371-374, Grison, P, 1980 (ed.) Etudes ecologiques et ethnologiques clans le Niolu (Marseille: Faculte des Sciences et Techniques de St, Jerome, Ecologia Mediterranea VI). Grosjean, R. 1958 'Deux monuments circulaires megalithiques de la moyenne vallee du Taravo.' Gallia Prehiitoire 1, ppl - 38. Grosjean, R, 1961 'Filitosa et son contexte archeologique,' Monuments et Memoires Pjot, Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 52(1), ppl-102, Hubbard, R, 1980 'Development of agriculture in Europe and the Near East: Evidence from quantitative studies.' Economic Botany 34(1), pp51-67. Humbert, A. 1980 Le monte clans les chaines subbetiques centrales (Espagne du Sud) (Paris: Departement Geographie, Universite --'---"---"~ - - -- ~ de Paris Sorbonne, Publication 10). Kuhnholtz-Lordat, G. 1958 L'ecran vert d'Histoire Naturelle, Memoire B9).

(Paris: Museum National

Jarman, M. and Webley, D. 1975 'Settlement and land-use in Capit anata, Italy.' In Higgs, E.S. (ed.) Paleaoeconomy (Cambridge: University Press), ppl77 - 221.

228

Jehasse, J, 1978 'Informations archeologiques: circonscription de la Corse,' Gallia Pr~histoire 21(2), pp723-734. Jehasse, J. 1980 'Infonnations archaeologiques: circonscription de la Corse. 1 Gallia Prehistoire 23(2), pp549-565, Lanfranchi, F. de

1978

Capula

(Levie: Centre Archeologique).

Lewthwaite, J,G. 1981 'Plains tails from the hills: Transhumance in Mediterranean archaeology.' In Sheridan, A. and Bailey, G. (eds.) Economic Archaeology (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series 96) pp57 - 66; Lewthwaite, J.G. 1982a 'Ambiguous first impressions: A survey of recent work on the early Neolithic of the West Mediterranean,' Journal of M

Pantie Zonguldak Giresun

232

In southern, southwestern and most of western Anatolia the vegetation comprises a Eu-Mediterranean zone of oak- pistachio maquis below 600- 1100 m, above which are the Oro- Mediterranean forests of deciduous oak, pine, cedar and fir (van Zeist et al. 1975), Towards the interior of Anatolia these are r ·e placed by steppe - forest and eventually by steppe proper. In contrast to southern Anatolia the northern Pontic region does not have a maquis - type zone at low elevations, and ' instead beec h- Rhododendron forest extends down to the shores of the Black Sea (Zohary 1973, pll4) . Further east, towards Caucasia , beech is rep laced by hornbeam (Carpinus orienta Zis ) as the dominant element in the true Euxinian forest . The Sub - Euxinian forest to the south has a more varied species composition including spruce, oak, pine and chestnut, as well as beech and hornbeam. Still further into the interior are the Xero - Euxinian steppe - forests . Both Mediterranean and Pontic forests have been subject to massive twentieth cen t ury deforestation , and in many areas a re now restricted to small r emnants . 3. VEGETATION HISTORY Cont rary to earlier beli ef (e .g. Butzer 1958), the greater part of the Ne ar East did not experience a 'pluvial' climate during and after the last glacial max imum . This has emerged primarily as a result of palyno logical investigations carried out over the last twenty years in west ern Iran , southeast Turkey , the Levant coast, southern Tu r key an d Greece (for a review see van Zeist and Bottema , in pres s ) . Althou gh the density of pollen sites remains sparse by northern Eu ropean standards , the extremely low levels of arboreal pollen (AP) foun d in continental sites such as Zerib a r and Van prior to c , 10 , 000 hp (van Zeist and Bottema 1977; van Zeist and Woldring 1978) indic ate that Artemisia - Chenopodiaceae steppe covered most interior areas of the Near Eas t at the time of the last northern hemisphere glaciation . The somewhat higher, but strongly fluctuating, AP values found in sites such as the Ghab in northwest Syria (Niklewski and van Zeist 1970) , shows that the forest was restricted to coastal and , in some cases, montane refuges during the Late Pleistocene .

Southern Anatolia The mo st inf ormative pollen diagrams for southern and southwest Turkey come from Kararm..k, SogUt and Akgol (van Zeis t et al. 1975; Bottema unpub lis hed) (Fig.lb) , They indicate not only that the glacial for est ref uge in the Taurus mountains was small and fragmented , but that th e fores t re - advance during the early Post - glacial was rather slow , es pecially in the drier -:interior. The SogUt diagram (Fig.2) shows levels of AP below 30% between c, 15 , 000 and 10,000 bp, suggesting at be s t a very open steppe- forest community . This was graduall y replace d during the early to mid Holocene by mixed forest which incl uded rat her xeric species, such as juniper and oak, as well as pine. Van Zeist et al. (1975, p138) suggest from this and the Karamik dia gram that full Oro - Mediterranean forest may not have been established until 7000-6000 bp. The situation in southwest Anatolia thus appears to be comparable with that in the Zagros mountains of western Iran, whe re the transition from steppe through steppe - forest to forest required some 5000 years and was not complete until c, 5500

233

Fig. 1 a)

Neolithic settlement and vegetat ion of Anatolia

Spontaneous forest cover (present day)

~Tuz 'vGolii

b)

Glacial forest refu ges and pollen sites (after van Zeist and Bottema)

Continuous Isolated

c)

Neolith ic and Mesolithic sites 0

100

200

km

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.,

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234

." *'-

"".

" " "++ " .. + +

"

+ Mesolithic site

"

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bp (van Zeist an d Bottema 1977) . Elsewhere in sou t hern Ar_iatolia, the pollen sequence from Bey~ehir shows that the present - day pine f orest formed soon after 6000 bp (Fig .3), probably related to increasing moisture availability, while the Holocene arboreal succession at AkgtH starts with a marked expansion of bi rc h , subsequently followed by maxima of oak and pine . This latter site , at t he eastern end of the semi - arid Kanya plain , is as yet und ated, but it suggests that forest re-a dvance was far from instan taneous in interior areas. Perhaps significantly, pollen of Betu la, a tree now almost totally absent from the Taurus mountains (van Zeist et al. 1975, p66), was also found in significant numbers at the aceramic Neolithic site of SUberde, radiocarbon- dated to 8300- 8000 bp, along with that of cedar, pine, juniper, chestnut and popla r (Aytu~ 1967; Bordaz 1969).

Northern Anatoli-a The ve ge tation histor y of the northern half of Turkey is poorly known, there bei ng very few available pollen diagrams and most of them coverin g only the later Po st - gl ac ial (e.g. Beug 1967; Aytug et al. 1975). Such re constructions of the glacial vegetation as exist, however, (e , g, van Zeist and Bottema 1977 and in press) indicate that the Pan tie forest refuge was much larger than in the Taurus mountains (Fig . lb) . A humid or sub- humid rather than arid Late Pleistocene climat e is a lso s ugg ested by the low elevations to which northern Anatoli an glaciers descended . In the Kackar mountains of northeast Turkey , for instance, the 'Wurm' snowlin~ lay at around 2400 m, compared to 27 00 rn in the eastern Taurus mountains and 2850 min central Anatol ia (Messer l i 1967) . Somewhat f urther east, in Georgia, pollen diagrams from the Kura valley show important changes in the composition of the forest during the last glaciat ion, but with the total AP values little below those of the Holocene (Gogichaishvili , in press) (Fig. 2). The Late Pleist ocene pine f orest gave way after c, 12 , 700 bp to mixed deciduous woodland in which Alnus and Juglans were leading components, and to fully developed mesic fo res t with ho r nbeam and oak by c. 10,000 bp. Th is area was therefore characterized by a dynamic forest succ ession at the beginning of the Post - glacial. To the south, in Soviet Armenia, the 'climax' pine forest was established somewhat later, around 7500 hp, but the preceding early Holocene tree cover was nonetheless ex l: ensive, even though its composition was more varied (Sajadj an 1978). The rate of Holocene forest re - advance in northern Anatolia cannot be established definitively until further palynological work has been und ertaken . It would nonetheless have begun from a larger refugium than in southern Anatolia, and the size of and distance from the refuge would, along with moisture availability , have been the prime det erminants of tree dispersal rates. We may therefore post ulate that forest re - advance proceeded significantly faster in northern than in southern Anatolia, and that the former was forested prior to the ap pearance of the Anat olian Neolithic . Certainly woodland was established at the beginning of the Post - glacial in adjac ent regions such as Caucasia and northern Greece, and bio- geographical

235

Pollen diagrams

Fig. 2

KURA

SAGAREJO ,

Jl

.c.

;;, E ~£ 0

"were found, amongst which were domestic einkorn, ernmer, bread wheat, barley, millet and vetch (Helbaek 1964). The mainly ac eramic Neoli t hic settlements of the seventh millennium be therefore had site - economie s at least partially dependent on plant and animal domes ticates-, an d by the sixth millemiumbc , sites such as Erbab a (Bo rda z 1973) an d ceramic Neolithi c Hacilar (Helbaek 1970), had almost entirely agricul tu ra l economies . In contrast to t he Neolithic, the Anatolian Mesolithic is poorly known and consequently still not properly defined archaeologically. Nonethel ess , it is perhaps not without significance that some of the few known Mesolithic sites are in precisely those areas where Neolithic si tes are ab sen t (Fig.le). The most obvious examples of this are Macun ~ay, near Ankara and Tekek~y on the Black Sea coast (Esin and Benedict 1963) , which demonstr ate that northern Anatolia was not wholly devoid of human populations during the early Post - glacial. In southern Ana tolia, the one area for which evidence of sub stantial Neoli thi c occupation is surprisingly and conspicuously lacking is the Pamphylian (Antalya) plain. Although some of this plain consists· of inf er til e travertine, most of the rest is river alluvium eminently well - s uit ed to early hoe- based agriculture. If the huyuks, so much a feature of the rest of the Anatolian landscape , are missing from the Pamphylian plain, Epi - Palaeolithic/Mesolithic sites are not, and include the rockshelters at Beldibi and Belbasi (Bostanci 1965) !,

237

and the spectacular cave sequence at Kara'In (Kokten 1963) . From the upper levels of th ese sites have come small amounts of 'Neolithic' potte·:i;y, bu t neither the animal bones recovered (Cervus, Capra, Bos ) nor the loc ati on s of t he se si tes i ndicate that they were based on anything o t her th an hunting and gathering. These sites ar e undated radiometrically, but it is more than likely that their upper levels were cont empo r a ry with the Neolithic elsewhere in southern Anatolia . In thi s particular ly wet and well - forested region Neolithic coloniz ation may have been re st ri cted by pre - ex is ti ng Mesolithic populations, which ado pt ed on ly sup e rficial Neolithic traits, such as pottery .

Environments and resouY'c es Between 10 ,000 and 7000 bp, the vegetation of southern and southwest Anatol ia in cluded a small, but expanding, area of Oro- Mediterr anean forest , best- develo ped on coasta l slopes of th e Taurus mountains (e . g. in Pamphyl ia ), and a belt of fo res t - s t eppe that was more extensive than at t h e present- day . The lat ter had a varied s pecies composition, includ ing grasses, pist a chio , almond, hackberry and juniper . These, and hydr oph i lou s trees su ch as elm and willow or poplar , were the main s p ecies re presented in t he wood charcoals from Can Has an III (Willcox 1977 , 19 78 ). This dominantly open, xer ic , parkland vegetation , locally accompanied by hydro phi lous sp eci es i n alluvial, riverine and lake -si de environments , would not have pr esented great probl ems of woodland cl ea rance fo r Neo li thic agricultu r e, On t he cont r ary, the associated floral a nd faunal e lements would have included many potential domest icates, no t ably wi ld einkorn (Triticum monococcum var . boeoticum), with sheep and go at in t he upland zone and Bos on the plains. Avail able evidence sugges t s that these species, and possibly others, were locally dome sti c ated in southern Anatolia, even if the inspiration to do so came from t he Fertile Cres cent to the east. In contrast, early Neolithic populations in northern Anatolia would have be e n face d with the need for substantial forest clearance and a new, d iff erent climate and re source base, In particular, it is unlikely that wil d cereals would h ave been pr esent in the natural flo ra of the Euxinian woodl and. Today, wild einko r n can be found throughout Anat oli a, bu t it s primary habitat is herbaceous oak parkland and open steppe . Zohary (1969) suggests that prima ry centres are limited to th e Fe rtil e Cre scen t a nd to a small area of western Anatoli a. The pr ese nce of wi ld einkorn in n orthern Tu r key is due sol e ly to th e creation of disturbed, secondary habitats by man , and it seems almo s t ce rt ain to have been absent from t he reg ion prior to agricultural activity, and theref ore the Neolithic . 5 . POLLEN EVIDENCE FOR HISTORICAL WOODLAND CLEARANCE Many , bu t not a ll , of the published pollen diagrams from Turkey show evidenc e of su bst antial human interference in regional vegetat ion during the later Post- gl ac ial . Apart from tha evidence of de forestation in the uppermost spectra of Post - Medieval date , a ll other clearance phase s wer e followed by forest reg eneration, indicating that woodland clearance was not permanent at the sites in question.

238

The most pronounced clearance phase, recorded 1n diagrams from Beysehir and Sog't'.it in the interior of southern Turkey, and from Ktiycegiz on!> the coast , occurred during the later second and fir st millennia be (van Zeist et aZ. 1975). It should be noted that it is only possible, rather than proven, that deforestation and regeneration were synchronous at the three sites. In any case, the age and duration of clearance , as estimated by van Zeist et aZ. (19 75 ) is based on constant sedimentation rate between the few radiocarbon dates available, and theref ore makes no allowance for any incr e a se in sed i ment yield and accumulation rate which may have accompani ed forest clearance and agriculture, These c hr onolo gical limitations apart , it is striking that the major phase of forest clearance in the Taurus mountains coincided with a period o f relative instability in Anatoli an history. Clear ance began a little before 1300 be, when the Hit tit e Empire was on the point of collapse, and lasted until the establishment of the Seleucid Empire in the third century be . Nor is organized a gri cultural activity indicat ed at pollen sites during the Imperi al Roman times. This apparently inverse correlation with periods of economic and political stabili ty may have more logic than is obvious at first sight. In more recent hi stori cal times population has alternately been concentrat ed in t he mountains and in the plains , thi s alternation being dep endent primarily on changing politico- economic cir cumstances, Thus during t he f ift eenth century AD (early Ottoman period) the Kenya plain was the scene of organized irrigation agriculture a nd supported a large popul a t i on (Hutteroth 1968) . The growing i n stability of later Ottoman t imes (eighteenth and nineteenth c entu r ies AD) led to the breakdown of the i rrigation system and the communications network upon which agric ulture was dependent. The populat i on gradually re treat ed to t he Taurus mountain zone, and the plain s were occupied by nomadic h e rdsmen . The present centu r y has seen a reversal of thi s trend and re-expansion onto the Konya plain, bas ed once again on irr igation a gricul t ure .

If a s i mil ar pattern prevailed in earli er historical times - and the chang i n g se t tlement pattern of the ~umra region of the Kanya plain (French 1970) gives some support to this idea ·- t hen we may expect that the late s econd millennium be brought a conc ent rat ion of popul ation in t h e uplands (from where almost all poll en diagr ams come) and incre a sin g pressure on its forest resources. The r etu r n of political stability in t he classical era would , in thi s case, have diminished popul a t i on pressure in t h e upl and vall eys. Should this explanation be correct then pollen diag rams from the plains mi gh t be expected to show a patt e rn of forest clearance which was the reverse of that demonstra t ed i n the upland diagrams, The latter might also be expec ted to exhibi t f or e s t clearance coinciding with late Ottoman times but, un f ortunat e ly, this cannot be identified in the pollen record at present, in part because it cannot be separated f r om twentieth century cle ara nce associated with mechanized lumbering . 6.

EVIDENCE FOR PREHISTORIC IMPACT ON WOODLAND

Pollen dat a for historical forest clearance c an be used to 'calibrate' that f or earlier periods, and it suggests in this case

239

7

+

Fig. 3

Rivers

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Pollen core site

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Modem vill ages

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that preh is tori c c lea rances were localized and did not become permanent f ea t ur es of t he land s cape. As Edwards (1979) ha s no ted, palynological ind ic ations of ear ly agricultural act iv it y may b e expected to reflect, first and foremost, the settlement history of each i ndividual poll en c a tchment. Of the Turkish pollen s it es, only t hat at Bey sehir is close to archaeological sites which provid e dat a on the !, • • occup at io n hi st ory of t he local area, and even that dat a is far f rom compl ete an d does no.t include evidence from ex cava ti on .

Beysehir (Fi g . 3 ) !1

The ear li es t ar cha eological site known in the Bey sehir area Kesakh (or Haci Bey) HUyUk - lies c. 1 km s outhwe st of the pollen cote sit e and has produced Neolithic and late Chal c olith i c pott e ry (Me ll aart 1961, pl61; Hall 1968 , p74). Although Kesakl i HUyUk would hav e been no more than a village in prehistory , a m6und over 30 m high was n evertheless built up , and the activities of it s popul a tion would be ex pected to h ave l e ft some mark on the near by pollen se quence . And , to a certain ex tent, this is the case. Betwe en th e base of th e core, radiocarbon- elated to 6090 ~ 75 bp (GrN 6878 ) , a nd the maj or c learanc e phase o f the l a te second mi l lenn ium be, a mo r e modest clearing of woodland is recorded (subzone 2b : v an Zeist et al. 1975, pl20) . The dating of this subzone is far from prec i se, but th e early t h ird millennium be interpolated from the core's two radiocar bon dat e s is sufficiently close for the late fourth millennium be dat e of the Anatoli a n Late Chalcolithic to make it likely t hat sub zone 2b in the Beysehi r di ag ram was related to the later o f the two period s of prehist~ric occupation at Ke s!:, akli HUyUk . As fo r the Neo lithic levels at the same site, the publi s hed pollen di agr am does not go back in time far enough to r ea ch t he per iod in quest ion, but a second, longer pollen core was taken in 197 7 and is prese ntly under study (van Zeist, pers.comm.) . Fo r t he moment , we may assume t hat Neolithic clearance was of the same order of magnitude as during the later Chalcolithic . Other archaeological sites in the local pollen catchment include a s mall , unnamed classical mound between Ke i akli HUyilk a nd Yesi ldag villa ge , Byzantine occupation near Adaki:iy, and a major fo rt if ied city of probabl e classical age at Ibrim Kalesi (Hall 1968, pp72 ff). Th e appare nt l ac k of Phrygian and other Iron Ag e sites i n th e a r ea, to be as so ciated with t he pollen evidence for human activity in the early fi r st millenn i um be, may imply that clearance occu r red at a re gi on al rat h er th an a local scale at this time.

Role of fi re One of the habitats in southern Anatolia most sensitive to envi r onmental str e ss is the transition zone between sub - humid woodland and semi - a r id steppe , which is especially vulnerable to burning, wh et he r man- induced or of na tura l origin. Lewi s (1 97 2) has document ed how fire can retard the plant succession in summer - dry Mediterranean vegetation, and, as Naveh (1967) has pointed out, the resist ance of Medite rr anean s hrub communities to both fire and prolonged summer drought may be closely related. As a method of environmental manage ment for pr e historic populations , burning would have had advantages in opening up new biological habitats, increasing availability of

241

nutrients such as calcium and phosphorus, and improving light penet ration - the latter favouring regrowth of the light - demanding grasses. Lewis (1972) cites the presence of ash layers in excavated Near Eastern archaeological s ites as evidence of widespread firing in prehistory, but these deposits are more likely to have been of local (i.e. intra site) rather than windblown origin, and stronger support for the practice comes from the presence of charcoal specks in sediment cores analysed for pollen. At Mirabad in Iran, for example, charcoal frag ments dating to a. 5500 bp testify that the periodically dry lake bottom was frequently set on fire (van Zeist 1967, p311). Ethographica lly, the use of fire is often associated with sem1 sedentary, slash- and-burn agricultura, but present evidence (Sherratt 1980) suggests that Neolithic crops were cultivated primarily by fixed - plot horticulture in the . Near East. Consequently , the burning of fields after harvest may have had only local ecological significance. A potentially more powerful use of fire would have been on open, uncultivated plains, such as the Jezirah of northeast Syria and northern Iraq, whi~h supported large numbers of herd ungulates. The increased productivity of herbaceous plants brought about by firing these environments would have favoured ruminants and increased total animal biomass. Fire may have been an important tool in the domestication of Bos, by improving grazing in areas such as the Kanya plain of southern Turk ey. The result of this activity wouid have been to retard the spread of trees near t he i r climatic margin in the interior of Anatolia, and to maintain a mosaic of steepe and forest. While the primary cause of the slow spread of forest in southern Turkey during the early Post - glacial was probably climatic aridity, fire, resulting from both human and natural agencies, would have reinforced that trend. In contrast, fire clearances in the sunnner - green mesic forests of northern Anatolia could only have been local rather than regional , in their effect. 7 . CONCLUSIONS Vegetat ion change was a key factor in the emergence of agriculture in the Near East during the early Post-g lacial. Wright (1976) has illustrated how the wild ancestors of the main plant domesticates were absent from most of the region prior to a, 11,000 bp; and in Palestine, the a ppe arance of cereal stands and their subsequent exploitation by ex isting populations may well have been the principal fact or responsible for the emergence of the Natufian from the preceding Kebaran culture (Henry, in press). So too it seems as if the concentration of Neolithic population in Southern Anatolia can be related directly to the different climatic and vegetational histories of the Pontic and Taurus mountains. Expanding from glacial refuges of diff erent sizes, the forest may have spread more rapidly over northern than over southern Turkey. Certainly in the latter , full Mediterranean forest was not established until after initial Neolithic colonization was complete. Because agriculture arrived more or less contemporaneously with the forest in so uthern Anatolia, it is theoretically possible to argue that fully developed 'climax' woodland, unmolested by agricultural

242

activity, has never existed here during the present interglacial. In practice, however - and in contradiction to Pullar's (1977) inter pretation of a comparable area of Iran - pollen evidence indicates that the major vegetation belts were not fundamentally altered in their nature or extent by early agricultural populations. Rather, Neolithic impact on woodland was of two types: firstly, small-scale, relatively ephemeral clearances for agriculture, and secondly, modification of the margins of the main vegetation belts, particularly that between forest and steppe. Here, human use of fire may have retarded the vegetation succession and helped to maintain a broad zone of open parkland, in a way that was not possible for the mesic forests of northern Anatolia. The Neolithic colonization of Turkey and southeast Europe was characterized by a replication of site - economies and environments, with surplus population budding off into ecological niches similar to those previously occupied (Roberts 1980). The open Mediterranean steppe--forest of southern Anatolia with its extensive alluvial soils and summer- dry climate apparently provided a more suitable environment than the already well - developed mesic forests of northern Anatolia, In this way the initial wave of Neolithic colonization appears to have skirted northern Anatolia and instead proceeded westwards. REFERENCES Aytug, B. 1967 'Etude de la flore de l'age neolithique dans la region de Si.iberde, sud-ouest de l'Anatolie.' Revue de la Faculte des Sciences Foresti~res, University of Istanbul 17, ppl-13. Dalaylari Aytug, B., Merev, N. and Edis, G. 1975 'Slirmene - Agacbasi !, !:, L§din Orman1n1n Tarihi ve Gelece!i.' Tarim Ve Ormanc1l1k Ara~tirma Grubu Serial No.39. Beug, H. - J. 1967 'Contributions to the postglacial vegetational history of northern Turkey.' In Cushing, E.J. and Wright, H.E. (eds.) Quaternary Paleoecology (Yale: University Press), pp349-356. Bordaz, J. 1969 'The Suberde excav,ations, southwestern Turkey. interim report. ' Tlirk Arkeoloji Dergisi 17, pp43 - 61.

An

Bordaz, J. 1973 'Current research in the Neolithic of south central Turkey: Suberde, Erbaba and their chronological implications.' American Journal of Archaeology 77, pp282 - 288 . Bostanci, E.Y. 1965 'The Mesolithic of Beldibi and Belbas{.' !:, poloji 3, pp91 - 134.

Antro-

Butzer, K.W. 1958 'Quaternary stratigraphy and climate in the Near East.' Bonner Geographische Abhandlungen Heft 24, Clark, J .G.D. Methuen).

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Prehistoric Europe: The Economic Basis.

(London:

Edwards, K.J. 1979 'Palynological and temporal inference in the context of prehistory, with special reference to the evidence from lake and peat deposits.' Journal of Archaeological Science 6, pp255 - 270,

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Esin, U. and Benedict, P . 1963 'Recent developments in the prehistory of Ana tolia . 1 Current Anthropology 4, pp339 - 3Lf6 . Fr enc h , D. H. 1970 'Notes on site distribution in the Cumra area.' Anatolian St ~dies 20, ppl39- 148 . b French , D.H., Hillman , G. C., Payne, S. and Payne , R. J . 19 72 'Excavat ions at Can Hasan III 1969- 1970.' In Higgs , E.S. (ed .) Pa pers rn Economic Prehistory . (Cambridge : University Press) , ppl81 - 190 . Gogichaishvili, L .K. (in press) 'Postglacial changes in climate and v ege tat ion in the western part of the Kura river basin.' In Zei st, W, van an d Bintliff, J . L. (eds.) Proceedings of Symposium on Envir onmental Evidence for Climatic Change in the Eastern Mediterranean and th e Near Eas t During the Last 20 , 000 Years, Groningen, 1980. (Ox ford : British Archaeological Reports) . Hall, A. S. 1968 'Notes and inscriptions from Eastern Pisidia.' Anatol i an Studies 18 , pp57 - 92. Hamond , F . W. 1978 'Regional survey strategies : a simulation approach.' In Che rr y , J. F. , Gamble, C. and Shennan, S , (eds,) Sampling in Cont emporary Bri tish Archaeology . (Oxford : British Archaeologi c al Reports, Br it ish Series 50), pp6 3- 86 . Helbaek, H. 1964 'First impressions of the Catal hilyilk plant hus bandr y .' Anatolian Studies 14, ppl21 - 123. ~

Helba ek , H. 1970 'The plant husbandry of Hacilar , ' In Me ll aart, J , (ed . ) Ex cavat i ons at Hacilar , 1 . (Edinburgh: Univer si ty Press), pp 189- 24L1. Henr y, D. O. (in press) 'An analysis of settlement patterns and adaptive s t ra tegies of the Natufian. I Prehistoire du Levant. Horowit z, A. 1971 'Climatic and vegetational development s in northe a stern Isr a ~l during Upper Pleistocene-Holocene time s.' Pollen et Spore s 13, pp255 - 278. Hutteroth , W. - D. 1968 Landliche Siedlungen im SUdlichen Inner Anatolien in den Let zt en Vierhundert Jahren . (Gottingen: Geogr aphischen Insti t u t der Univer s itat), Kok.ten , K. 1963 'Di e Stellung von Kara'In innerhalb de r tilrkischen Vo rgeschi chte . ' Anatolia 7, pp59-86, Kosse, K. 197 9 Settlement Ecology of the Early and Middle Neolithi c Kori:is and Linear Po ttery Cultures in Hungary . (Oxf ord : British Arc ha eol og i cal Reports, International Series 64). Legge, A. J . 1977 'The origins of agriculture in the Near East . ' In Megaw, J . V.S . (ed . ) Hunters, Gatherers and Fir st Farmers Beyond Europe . (Leicester: University Press), ppSl - 68.

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Lewis, H.T. 1972 'The role of fire in the domestication of plants and animals in southwest Asia : 1 a hypothesis . 1 Man 7, ppl95 - 222. Mellaart, J. 1961 'Early cultures of the south Anatolian Plateau.' Anatolian St udies 11, ppl59-184. Mellaart, J. 1972 'Anatolian Neolithic settlement patterns. 1 In Ucko, P.J., Tringham, R. and Dimbleby, G.W. (eds.) Man, Settlement and Urbanism. (London: Duckworth), pp279 - 284. Mellaart, J, 1975 and Hudson).

The Neolithic of the Near East .

(London: Thames

Messerli, B. 1967 'Die eiszeitliche und die gegenwartige Vergletscherung im Mittelmeerraum . 1 Geographica Helvetica 22, pplOS -22 8 . Nandris, J.G. 1969 'Early Neothermal sites in the Near East and Anatolia.' Memoria Antiquitatis 1, ppll-66 . Nandris, J.G. 1977 'The perspective of long- term change in southeast Europe. 1 In Carter, F.W . (ed . ) An Historical Geography of the Balkans. (London: Academic Press), pp25- 57. Naveh, Z. 1967 'Mediterranean ecosystems and vegetation types in California and Israel . ' Ecology 48, pp445 - 459. Niklewski, J. and van Zeist, W. 1970 'A late Quaternary pollen diagram from northwestern Syria.' Acta Botanica Neerlandica 19, pp73 7- 75Lf , Payne, S. 19 72 'Can Hasan III, the Anatolian aceramic and the Greek Neolithic.' In Higgs, E.S . (ed.) Papers in Economic Prehistory . (Cambridge: University Press), ppl91- 194. Perkins, D. 1969 'Fauna of Catal hiiyiik : evidence for early cattle domestication in Anatolia. ,P Science 164, ppl77 - 179. Perkins, D. and Daly, P. 1968 'A hunters' village in Neolithic Turkey . ' Scientific American 219, No . 5 , pp97 - 106. Pullar, J.

1977

'Early cultivation in the Zagros.

1

Iran 15, pplS - 37 .

Roberts, N. 1980 Late Quaternary Geomorphology and Palaeoecology of the Konya Basin, Turkey. (London: University, unpublished Ph . D. thesis) . Sajadjan, J.V . 1978 'Armenien und die angrenzenden Gebiete in der Nacheiszeit.' Zeitschrift flir Archaologie 12, pplS - 37. Sherratt, A.G . 1972 'Socio- economic and demographic models for the Neolithic and Bronze Ages of Europe.' In Clarke, D.L. (ed.) Models in Archaeology, (London: Methuen), pp477 - 542. Sherratt, A. G. 1980 'Water, soil and seasonality in early cereal cultivation . ' World Archaeology 11, pp313- 330.

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Todd, I.A. 1980 The Prehistory of Central Anatolia I: The Neolithic Period . Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, Vol.60 (GBtteborg: Paul ~s t roms FBrlag). Watson, J.P . N. 1975 'Domestication and bone structure in sheep and goats. 1 Journal of Archaeological Science 2, pp375 - 383. Willcox, G. H. 1977 'Archaeobiology: Can Hasan III charcoals.' British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara , 29th Annual Report, ppl3 - 14 . Willcox, G.H, 1978 'Can Hasan III charcoals (1978 study season).' British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 30th Annual Report, p13 . Wright, H. E. 1976 'The environmental setting for plant domestication in the Ne ar East . ' Science 194, pp385-389. Zeist, W. van 1967 'Late Quaternary vegetation history of Western Iran . ' Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 2 , pp301 - 311 . Zeist, W. van and Bottema, S. 1977 'Palynological investigations in Western Iran . ' Palaeohistoria 19, pp19-85. Zeist, W. van and Bottema, S. (in press) 'Vegetational history of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East during the last 20,000 years.' In Zeist, W. van and Bintliff, J.L. (eds.) Pro ceedings of Symposium on Environmental Evidence for ClimaticChange in the Ea s tern Mediterranean and the Near East During the Last 20,000 Years, Groningen, 1980 . (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports) . Zeist, W. van and Woldring, H. 1978 'A postglacial pollen diagram from Lake Van in East Anatolia.' Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 26 , pp249- 276. Zeist, W. van, Woldring, H. and Stapert, D. 1975 vegetation and climate of southwestern Turkey.' 17, pp53 - 143.

'Late Quaternary Palaeohistoria

Zohary, D. 1969 'The progenitors of wheat and barley in relation to domestication and agricultural dispersal in the Old World.' In Ucko, P.J . and Dimbleby, G.W. (eds.) The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals. (London: Duckworth), pp47 - 66. Zohary, M. 1973 Geobotanical Foundations of the Middle East. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart. (Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger), 2 vols .

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BRONZE AGE WOODLAND EXPLOITATION IN THE WESTERN ITALIAN ALPS Renato Nisbet (1) INTRODUCTION The Western Italian Alps are one of the main morphological and geological features of Piedmont, covering around 40% of its area. One important aspect to be borne in mind in the study of the envir onmental and human history of this part of the Alps is the absence of the pre- Alpine calcareous belt, well represented in the Central and Eastern ranges; this fact determines the considerable differences in climate and drainage between Western and Eastern Alpine valleys (Gribaudi 1957, pl77). Moreover, the tectonic structure makes the Italian side steeper and shorter than the outer one; along the valleys the vegetational and climatic belts are shortened to a few hundred metres (Sestini 1963, p32; Socin 1954). This paper deals with a central area of the Western Alps, the Alto Canavese, covering the territory formed by the valleys corning down from the southern and eastern sides of the Gran Paradiso massif, mainly the Oreo and Soana valleys (Fig.l) . In this area recent pal aeobotanical and archaeological evidence concerning Bronze Age wood land exploitation is available and the main results of this research will be briefly reviewed, (2 ) ARCHAEOBOTANICAL DATA Though the history of the vegetation in Alto Canavese has so far been investigated in few sites (Fig.l), palynological analyses carried out in adjoining areas can give an idea of the main vegetational changes during the Holocene period . Moreover, the study of charcoal from some Bronze Age settlements gives us the opportunity to assess the role of man as an ecological factor during the earliest phases of colonization of these valleys at a local scale. Po Uen

analyses

(a) Alluvial plain and plain terraces. Pollen analyses have been carried out from interrnoraine peat bogs or lakes near the Alto Canavese area: Lake Viverone (Schneider 1978, p69); Viverone peat bog (Keller 1931, p34); S. Giovanni coal analys es (a) Alluvial plain and plain terraces. Analysis of wooden piles from Viverone lakeside sites (middle to late Bronze Age); buried tree - trunks in river borne sediments near Azeglio (Fozzati et al . ~ in press). (b) Charcoal analyses from two Bronze Age sites in the lower Oreo valley have been considered here: Belmonte hill (hearth) and Salto hillock (stratified cave deposit) (Nisbet, in press). (c) Mountain slopes . The only Bronze Age site above 1,000 min this area (Vislario) has proved to be rich in charcoal, contained in a hillside terrace (Cima and Nisbet, in press) .

(3) DISCUSSION

The setting of the Post - glacial vegetation in Piedmont has been discussed in several papers (reviewed in Charrier 1970a; Charrier and Peretti 1977). At the end of the Late- glacial, refugia of Pinus silves tris were found in the Maritime Alps; this species later spread northward and formed the earliest forests of the Holocene period. Subsequently the middle altitudinal belt was forested by other conifers , name ly fir, during the Atlantic; the plain and the lower vall eys were apparently colonized earlier by the mixed oak forest, from the latest warm oscillation of the Wurm (Aller¢d). In the Alto Canavese area, it appears that at the end of the climatic optimum there was a colder and wetter phase, which led to the breaking up of the mixed oak forest in the plain and the expansion of beech on the slopes. Charrier (Peretti and Charrier 1964), studying high altitude deposits , maintained that during the Sub boreal peri od the Western Alps were forested by Abies and Picea, and at the end of this phase the upper tree line was around 300 m higher than today. Subsequently , the same author (Charrier 1970b) asserted that the l a te Sub - boreal period in Piedmont was characterized by a wet and warm climate, which shifted to a cold and wet episode between 1200 and 450 BC. Recent studies by Ruth Schneider (1978) indicate a Sub- boreal expansion of the mixed oak forest , with an increase of Fagus in the valleys. Palynological data seem therefore to give somewhat contradictory pictures of the Sub-boreal vegetation in Piedmont. The complexity of the problem is underlined by the particular morphology of the territory , with its sudden altitudinal, climatic and ecological variations. The slow decline of the mixed oak forest is evident in the pollen diagrams dur ing the Sub- boreal period; it seems possible that it might locally have been caused by human pressure in areas of ecological tension. To clarify this point it would be necessary to improve our knowledge of the structure of the mixed oak forest, and particularly to assess which kind of oak is represented. This aspect has

249

been discu s sed (e.g. Lona et al . 1965; Bertoldi 1968, p142) because of its phytoclimatic importance , and must also be taken into accoun t when considering the Alto Canavese Bronze Age sites. In the lower Oreo valley excavations carried out by F . G. Fedele (1981a) f r om 1977 to 1980 at the Boira Fusca cave (Salta Spur ) have brought to li ght a cultural sequence stretching bac k to the Upper Palaeolithi c (Fedele 1981b). The study of charcoa ls belonging to late Bronze Age layers indicates the presence of Quer cus pubescens a11dafew other thermophilous trees, like Celtis/Ulmu s , growing on the steep slopes of the spur , At Belmonte hillock, 3 km downstream, a late Bronze Age hearth (Fedele 1978 , p61) (Note 1) has provided further information of the veget~tiona l pattern of the valley in that period . A substantial difference between the Belmonte and Salta charcoals should be stressed , Belmon t e samples a re mainly represented by large pieces ; the weak curvature of the rings suggests the utilization of tree - trunks or large br a nches , while at Salta small branches are consistently found . One can suppose a different woodland management in the two localities , perhaps deforestation at Belmonte due to the proximity of a large settlement , and coppicing at Salta (Nisbet, in press) , Moreover, the use of large pieces of wood at Belmonte might suggest that the trunks were not cut far away from the site ; therefore in this case , charcoal composition of the hearth should reflect the local wood composition . Charc oa l from the Belmonte site represents only two species, (Note 2). The natural habitat of these t rees does not contradict their association in the hearth. Q. pubescens is a thermophilous , xerophilous plant, f r equent on rocky hillsides . It is considered as a sub- Mediterranean species, and it is frequently found on the warm slopes of the widest Alpine valleys today . Birch is a pioneer tree which easily spreads on eroded surfaces , where demanding species cannot survive, Like the the rmophilous oak , the birch is a light - demanding tree and its part icipation in broad- leaved woods is normally limited to open associations .

Quercus cf . pubescens and Betu l a sp .

The low , well exposed hill of Belmonte could be a suitable hab itat for t h e thermophilous oak. Its presence with Betu l a, which seems chara cter istic of the lowe'r Oreo valley hillocks inhabited during the Bronze Age, can be seen as a consequence of human pressure on that environment , where deforestation can easily lead to hillwash and soil erosion , a situation which favours pioneering light - demanding plants. (4) ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE Besides a rchaeobotanical analyses, clearances in the Alps can be infer~ed by the presence of villages or of structures linked with agricultural or pastoral activities on forested slopes, such as slope terraces , These structures, frequently tens of metres iorig, are often , but not necessarily, associated with a settlement; however, their presence indicates a cooperative effort which can suggest the existence of permanent or semi - permanent connnunities nearby.

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A distinction should be made between the different shapes and functions of terraces in Alpine and peninsular Italy. In the latter case, the terrace creates new fields where either trees can be grown (vineyard, olive trees, cherry trees, fig trees, etc.), or horticul tural crops may occur: this gives the landscape the characteristic form called 'giardino medi~erraneo' by Sereni (1979). Moreover, they are frequently built in semiarid zones to conserve moisture, given the frequency of sheet erosion on the hillsides. They are particularly suitable in dry farming contexts (Despois 1965, p221) and, for this reason, terracing is often related to Mesozoic and Cainozoic lime stones , with rocky and stony regoliths. In the Alps , terracing is carried out essentially to retain the hillside, mainly on wet slopes where grazing causes soil creep more easily . Though the technique's in building terraces are rather similar in the mountains, there is some functional difference which seems ecologically determined . This aspect has been pointed out by several authors who studied recent human activities in different landscapes of the Alps and Apennines (Sereni 1979, p216; Giacomini and Fenaroli 1958, pp29 - 83; Collomb and Raulin 1979, pl21; Massot 1979, p266) . In the thermophilous vegetational belt of the lower valleys, terraces frequently carry vineyards, cereal fields and orchards; while at the higher altitudes, where there are still permanent settlements, or when seasonal transhumance occurs, the ground is often terraced solely for cereal cultivation (mainly rye) up to the climatic limit of growth (Blanchard 1954, p417). In the middle altitudinal belt (chestnut/oak woodland), up to 1100 m, orchards and meadows, sometimes allowing small - scale grazing, are normally found on terraced clearances . In this area, terraces are restricted to clearings. However, it is imp ortant to remember that in recent centuries terracing on the hillsides was a common practice in the management of ch.estnut wood ('chestnut orchard') in the Apennines (Moreno 1970, p88) as well as in the Alps (Dainelli 1963). In his study on the 'chestnut culture' in Italy , Cherubini (1981) mentions that chestnut wood terracing is known from a~ least the end of the Middle Ages. How old this technique is, or if it occurred in oak forests before chestnut cultivation (i.e. in pre- Roman times), is not yet known; earlier evidence of wood terracing has not , so far, been produced in the Alps. Consequently we can assume that archaeological records ofterraces in the broad - leaved forest belt of Alpine valleys represent indirect evidence of local clearance. For this reason, we shall briefly consider the location and fun ction of these structures in North Italian prehistory , in comparison with a similar feature recently discovered in the Western Alps. (4.1)

Prehistoric terracing ~n North Italy

Dry stone walls, linear stone structures of varying length and cairns are well known to prehistoric research, and have recently been the subject of specific studies (Bowen and Fowler 1978; Bradley 1978), which mainly concern Central and Northern Europe. Fewer data are available on the subject in Southern Europe (Limbrey 1975 , p212; Delano Smith 1979, pl83), though there has been some discussion of the problem (Gilman 1981, p7). The archaeological evidence of land utilization in the Alps derives from two sources.

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(1) Rock art. The famous engravings from the Vallee des Merveilles (Alpes Maritimes) provide fine examples of stone structures of many kinds and functions (cl8tures, enceintes, enclos pour le betail) usually interpreted as field boundaries, pasture divisions, enclos ures, etc. (Bickne H 1913; de Lumley et al. 1976). Similar functions are suggested by features in the well known Val Camonica drawings, such as the Bedolina 'map' (Anati 1975, p92). However, no clear evidence of terraces is found in any Alpine rock art . (2) Direct evidence of prehistoric terraces comes from the excavation of Bronze and Iron Age settlements (Note 3):

I:.:ai'ly Bronze Age Monte Tondo (Berici hills, Veneto, c, 350 m). aces and house platforms (Ba~field 1971, p71).

Cultivation terr -

Late Bronze Age (a) Montesei di Serso (Trentino, 600 m). Hillside terraces, nine metres long. Other badly decayed terraces on the slopes, used for building houses which are partly underground (Perini 1978, p30) . (b) Zignago (Ligurian Apennines, 950 m). Platforms and terraces for the construction of houses (Mannoni 1976, p82), (c) Doss Gustinacci(Trentino, 650 m). Hillside terraces, retaining walls (Perini 1971, p331; Leonardi 1971, p338; Marzatico 1979, p57).

Iron Age (a) Velturno (Alto Adige, c. 900 m), Sequence of large terraces (50 m by 30 m) on hillside, discovered by aerial survey (Rizzi 1975, p320). (b) Montesei di Serso (Trentino, 600 m). Re - utilization of a late Bronze Age terrace, and construction of a new retaining wall near a house. 'Luco' culture of tenth to ninth centuries BC (Perini 1978, p42). (c) Many hill - top settlements or castellari scattered on Ligurian Apennines (Camogli , Zoagli, Sestri Ponente, Uscio, S, Cipriano, Villaggio delle Anime, Rocca di Drego, etc,) (Bernardini 1977, pp 80-83) .

Uncertain chronology Terraces are sometimes described in archaeological reports, without any chronological ascription, due to a lack of cultural mat erial (Vallee des Merveilles: de Lumley et al . 1976, pl25; Monte Covolo: Barfield 1973- 74, p7; Aosta valley: Balista 1981, pl2, based on sedimentological considerations but without any direct observation of structures). The history of terracing in North Italy requires further investigation using broadly based area survey techniques. In spite of the scarcity of archaeological evidence, it seems that the known prehis toric terraces in the uplands are normally found in relation to houses, though their dimensions always exceed the strict area of habitation. This would suggest a small-scale adjustment of the surrounding area, which could be related to the presence of a courtyard, Terraced platforms have also been considered as cult enclosures, and sometimes they occur as defensive structures around the hill forts (Bernardini 1977, p83).

252

I\)

01 Cu

B

Fig. 2.

,00

'"'=----~~-~-~

Section through the central part of a Bronze Age terrace at Vislario (VA1), Turin. Sectors D-G have been fully excavated over an area of 6 m2 • The stars indicate the sherds in situ; triangles in sectors C and F show samples taken for phytolith analyses.

Q

c:,

E99°

(4.2)

Prehistoric terracing

~n the Western Italian Alps

A recent rescue excavation on the mountain side site of Vislario, at 1054 min the lower Soana valley, has brought to light the most ancient Alpine terrace in the whole Canavese territory; a late Bronze Age date has been tentatively proposed (Cima and Nisbet, in press), based on pottery typology , The site is on a rather steep slope (300 to 45°), facing south, c. 550 m above the Soana thalweg . The dig has exposed a wall for a length of more than 12 m, extended from west to east. Six main sedimentary units have been identified (from the base, Fig.2). (1) Colluvial slope deposit, originating from periglacial solifluction. There are alternate clay and angular sorted small debris layers. The thickness is unknown, because its base has not been reached. Where it is fully visible in artificial sections· near the site, it rests on the bedrock (micaschist and fine texture gneiss of the Sesia-Lanzo massif). Values of pH are between 6,2 and 6.4. (2) Silty layer, with concentrations of decimetric angular stones. The thickness is variable (5 - 60 cm). pH 5.7. (3) Silty layer with unsorted angular stones (generally slabs), some of which exceed 50 cm in length. The thickness is about 30 cm. The colour is yellowish, with black mottles; pH 5,8, (4) Black clayey unit, with charcoal, formed of thin lenses. Its base is irregular, with small shallow pits. The thickness decreases from west (80 cm) to east (sectors F and G) where it ends. Stones are abundant, usually in imbricated formation. The dimension of the feature and the position of the stones indicate the remains of a slope terrace . Fine fraction is black; pH 5.9. (5) Fine sandy layers containing small unsorted debris, with various orientations. The upper limit is uncertain. The colour is brown; pH 5.9. (6) Immature sandy brown soil, around 40 cm thick. pH between 6,4' and 6.1. The stony structure (layers 2 to 4) contains a few hundred sherds, dating the wall to the end of the second millennium BC . The sherds are scattered through a depth of about one metre, but the main part of the structure, formed by blocks of 40 cm or more, is around 60 cm thick. The stratigraphic evidence shows that the upper limit of the lowest layer (1) has been partially levelled, to allow the construcd:on of the wall. For this reason it seems that this structure cannot be considered as a demarcation stone bank, or a stone clearance mound; in such a case, the stones would be simply laid on the ground. Moreover, its function as a retaining wall is suggested also by its orientation, which approximately follows the contour. For the same reason, this structure cannot be seen as a lynchet; there is no evidence of a buried soil underneath; on the contrary the wall has been built after excavation of the ground surface probably corresponding to the base of layer 5, as suggested by phytolith analysis (Fig.3). Silica bodies, sampled through two sections of the deposit (sectors C and F), demonstrate the presence of three main stratigraphic units. The lowest, layer 1, is almost sterile; contamination could have occurred during settling

254

F

C

pH

5

S

7

I

I

I

VA 1

10

Fi g. 3.

20

%

10

30

30

%

Vislario (Turin) . Phytolith analyses. The dark-coloured, shaded level, has a high content of charcoal.

14

VA1

12

10

8

6

4

2

Fig.

4.

Vislari o (Turin). Bronze Age terrace: charcoal analyses. Numbers on they axis show the samples in which every species is present.

255

50

of the stones. The middle, layer 2, has a low silica body content. This is , bhe 'foundation' layer of the wall, and stratigraphically can be seen as the upper sedimentary sub - µnit of layer 1. The upper unit (layers 3 to 6) yields a large number of phytoliths, suggesting wood clearance with a grass cover. The more significant morphologies of phytoliths (dumbbell, oblong- sinuous, hat) indicate grasses belonging to Festucoid and Panicoid subfamilies, with a very small fraction of Chloridoid elements (Twiss et al. 1969, plll). Layers 4 and 5 contain a quantity of charcoal, the study of which is not yet complete. However, 17 samples have been analysed, with a totai of 127 fragments. A preliminary picture of charcoal composition, derived from samples in the lower part of layer 2 is given in Fig . 4 . The composition of the tree cover, as indicated by the analysis, belongs to the beech mesophylous series, with many species of the lower vegetation belt (mixed broad - leaved forest, with thermophilous species like Tilia), whose presence here could have been favoured by local wood clearance, Corylus and Fraxinus could find specific uses, and the latter is still present today in the Alps around the hamlets, where its leaves are largely employed as fodder. (5) CONCLUSIONS Anthropogenic influences in the Alto Canavese during the Bronze Age have been demonstrated in different ecotypes. In the lower valley, human pressure on limited areas could lead to a substantial shift in the natural ecosystems, with the establishment of small associations, such as Quercus pubescens ~Betula observed on some long inhabited hillocks. Unfortunate:Ly this association cannot be ident ified in the pollen diagrams, dominated by mixed oakwoods and beechwoods, and therefore we cannot establish the importance of smaller associations in the wood cover of the valley at that time. Moreover, we might see in the different sizes of charcoal in the two sites (Belmonte and Salta) the evidence of particular trends of woodland management. On the slopes, local clearances flourished around seasonal settlements with a pastoral and agricultural economy. It is significant that the terraced site of Vislario is found in a particular ecological belt, between the upper beech series and the lower mixed oak forest series. This situation could give access to the Alpine grassland, and meanwhile allowed the exploitation of the rich broad-leaved wood below. This ecosystem was exploited early in the European uplands, but its full possession occurred only since the third millennium BC. (Sherratt 1980) . We have now increasing evidence that a similar settlement pattern developed in the Western Alps, where seasonal upland sh~ep/goat herding had occurred since the late Neolithic beside a hunting economy (Chaix 1977). However, permanent slope settlements have not yet been clearly recorded before the Chalcolithic, one millenniurnlater (Vollein, Aosta Valley, 925 m: Mezzena 1981).

256

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

.

I am. grateful to Dr. P. Biagi, Prof. T. Mannoni and Dr. D. Moreno . . for providing useful information about modern and prehistoric terracing and dry stone structures in North Italy; to Prof. P. Durio and Prof. c. Sarra for permission to use laboratory facilities at the Istituto di Ecologia , Facolta di Veterinaria, Turin , where phytolith analysis has been carried out; and to M. Bell and J. Foster for helpful comments on th e structure of this paper. NOTES Note 1 . In spite of the lack of fully published excavations , there is evidence that Belmonte was one of the largest hilltop settle ments during the late Bronze Age in Alto Canavese (e.g. Rittatore Vonwiller 1975 , p25 and 41). Note 2 . The determination of Quercus pubescens Willd. has been made on the basis of the structure of the late wood, which has many vessels ; this feature, according to Cambini 1967 , limits the field of analysis - amongst the many Italian deciduous oaks - to the Robur section. Within it, spring vessel dimensions (tangential diameter average 180µ ; radial diameter average 216µ) fall in the field of vari ability of Q. pubescens. The determination of Betula presents no difficulty to a genus level , but it is impossible to a species level. In Italy there are two species of birch (B. pendula Roth . and B. pubescens Ehrh , ) with a similar habitat. No te 3. This list cannot be complete, because frequently terr aces are mentioned only marginally in the archaeological reports, principally when they seem to be agricultural features not immediately linked with a settlement. The objective of this list is to give the broad chronological dimension of the problem,

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'Notiziario ex traregionale :

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