The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 36 • Steven Mithen
substantially, causing more ice to melt and the sea-level to rise. Insects, plants and animals began
to colonize, initiating an ecological succession that climaxed with mixed deciduous forest over
much of Britain by 8,000 years ago.
Technological changes at the Pleistocene-Holocene (Postglacial) interface are complex and
blurred, but by 10,000 years ago people had adopted microliths (discussed below) as a dominant
component of their toolkits. The earliest Mesolithic sites, such as Star Carr (Yorkshire) and
Thatcham (Berkshire), were created in relatively open landscapes in which birch and pine were
the principal trees—probably quite similar to northern Scandinavia today. Palynology demonstrates
how the relative amounts of pollen from different trees, herbs and grasses have changed through
time (Figure 3.2). Supplementary information can be gained from macro-plant remains, such as
seeds and catkin scales, trapped in sediments; in some cases, detailed environmental reconstruction
is feasible. At Star Carr, for instance, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers camped next to reedswamp
vegetation fringed by stands of birch. As time passed, the reedswamp was replaced by marsh
ferns, and then by sedges and willow. On dry land, ferus were always present amongst birch
woodland into which pine infiltrated.
As climate ameliorated further, such woodland was progressively replaced by much denser
mixed deciduous woodland, in which hazel, oak, lime and elm were significant. In relatively wet
areas, alder and willow flourished. As this vegetation became established, so too did new animal
communities in which red deer, roe deer and wild pig were dominant among the larger herbivores.
Figure 3.2 Pollen diagram from the lake centre at Star Carr, illustrating vegetation change in the Lateglacial and Early
to Mid Postglacial.
Source: Day, P., 1996. ‘Devensian late-glacial and early Flandrian environmental history of the Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire,
England’, Journal of Quaternary Science 11, 9–24