Holocene flora, vegetation and land-use changes on Dingle  peninsula, Ireland, as reflected in pollen analytical, archaeological and historical records

O’Connell, Michael, & Wolters, Steffen. (2025). Holocene Flora, Vegetation and Land-Use Changes on Dingle Peninsula, Ireland, as Reflected in Pollen Analytical, Archaeological and Historical Records. Diversity, 17(7), 456. https://doi.org/10.3390/d17070456

Abstract

Palaeoecological investigations connected with extensive pre-bog, stone-wall, field systems at Kilmore, Dingle peninsula, Ireland, are presented. The main pollen profile, KLM I, spans the last 4000 years. When the record opens, pine (Pinus sylvestris) was already a minor tree, oak (probably Quercus petraea) was the main tall-canopy tree, and birch and alder dominated locally. Substantial farming is recorded between ca. 1530–600 BCE (Bronze Age) when the stone walls were probably constructed. From ca. 560 CE onwards, there is intensive farming for much of the time. A largely treeless landscape came into being in the late twelfth century CE. Fine-spatial reconstructions of landscape and vegetation dynamics, including the timing of blanket bog initiation, are made. Post-glacial change in the western Dingle peninsula, based on published Holocene lake profiles, and drawing on the new information presented here, is discussed. Reported are (a) fossil spores of the filmy ferns, Hymenophyllum tunbrigense, H. wilsonii and Trichomanes speciosum, (b) the first fossil pollen record for Arbutus unedo (strawberry tree) in the Dingle peninsula (540 CE) and (c) the first published records for Fagopyrum fossil pollen in Ireland; these indicate that buckwheat was grown at Kilmore in the late eighteenth / early nineteenth centuries.

Funder

Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit and Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU)

Publisher

MDPI

Rights

Attribution 4.0 International

cb

Collections

Archaeology (Scholarly Articles)