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Human-environment interactions during the Holocene: new data and interpretations from the Oban area, Argyll, Scotland

Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales SY23 3DB, UK

Clive Bonsall

Department of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Old High School, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LT, UK

Fay M. Davies

Department of Geography, The University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

Mark R. Robinson

Department of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Old High School, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LT, UK

Investigations of the archaeological, geochemical, microscopic charcoal and palynological records from five localities in the Oban area, along an altitudinal transect from coast to upland, have provided new information on human–environment interactions during the Holocene. Some of the results are at variance with previous interpretations of Mesolithic human impacts and the timing of the transition to farming in Atlantic Scotland. High charcoal values and the occurrence of cereal-type pollen grains, which have commonly been used to infer human activity during the Mesolithic, appear in the Oban area at least to be related to climate change. However, the greater frequency of woodland-decline episodes in inland and upland areas prior to 5000 BP is more easily explained in terms of human impact. Archaeological and palynological evidence indicates that the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Oban area occurred atc. 5000 BP and, on evidence from elsewhere in northern Britain, coincided with a marked shift to drier climatic conditions. Up untilc. 1000 BP agricultural communities appear to have had comparatively little impact on the environment. Thereafter, there was rapid and permanent deforestation possibly linked to the development of a distinctive land-use strategy and settlement pattern that survived until the nineteenth century ad.

Key Words: Holocene • climatic change • Mesolithic–Neolithic transition • environmental archaeology • microcharcoal • cereal-type pollen • woodland clearance • Oban • Scotland

The Holocene, Vol. 10, No. 1, 109-121 (2000)
DOI: 10.1191/095968300671508292


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