Bronze Age and Later Vegetation History on the Limestone Tabular Hills of North-East Yorkshire, UK: Pollen Diagrams from Dalby Forest

Abstract

This paper presents the results of palynological investigations on the limestone Tabular Hills of the North York Moors in north-east England. These limestone areas have the highest concentration of post-Mesolithic archaeological sites in this upland region, but because of the geology and paucity of suitable organic deposits they have had almost no palynological research with which to assess the land-use history of these cultures, nor their impacts on the vegetation. This lack of palaeoecological information from the Tabular Hills has been addressed, so that the area’s environmental history can be added to that of the rest of the North York Moors, which is relatively well known. Three pollen profiles have been examined, Yondhead Rigg providing an early Bronze Age to post-Medieval record, Seavy Slack providing a late Iron Age to post-Medieval record, and Dargate Dykes providing a late Medieval to modern record. The combined vegetation history from the three sites indicates a similar story to that from elsewhere on the Moors, with substantial forest disturbance in Bronze Age and Iron Age times, with significant woodland regeneration after each, but with the first main forest clearance phase for agriculture occurring during the Romano-British period, followed by early Medieval woodland regeneration, then extensive clearance in the later Medieval period for some arable cultivation and extensive animal husbandry on the rich calcareous grassland. In each agricultural phase the scale and intensity of disturbance seems to have been greater in these fertile limestone areas than in the rest of the Moors, with their poorer, more acidic soils, but still with an emphasis on stock-rearing and less extensive cultivation. The results will allow a more comprehensive landscape history of the North York Moors to be understood for later prehistory and more recent times.

Keywords:

• Palynology
• limestone soils
• vegetation history
• late prehistoric
• Roman
• medieval
• land use

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Chris Orton of the Design and Imaging Unit, Geography Department, Durham University for production of the figures, to the landowners for access to the sites, and to the North York Moors National Park Committee for grants towards this work. We are grateful to Mags Waughman and Nick Mason of the North York Moors National Park Authority for information on the location of archaeological sites in the study area. Dating was carried out at the Belfast, Waikato and Poznan radiocarbon laboratories. We wish to record our thanks to the late Don Spratt, who published extensively on the archaeology of the North York Moors, for locating the peat deposit at Seavy Slack and assisting us with the fieldwork there.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian Simmons

Ian Simmons FSA FBA was Professor of Geography at Durham University and pioneered palaeoecological work on the North York Moors using peat profiles, encouraged by the soil investigations of Geoffrey Dimbleby. He has published a number of papers on the theme and supervised some PhD theses as well as contributing towards the prehistory of Palaeolake Flixton in the Vale of Pickering. Until recently the work had been confined to the acid soils of the Moors and this paper reflects a long-time ambition to add material from the limestone areas. Now retired, he has published several books on landscape history and ecology, including a volume on moorland history in England and Wales.

Jim Innes

Jim Innes has a PhD in Quaternary Palaeoecology and has used fine-resolution pollen analyses to investigate his two main research interests, the vegetation history of the North York Moors and the relations of Mesolithic people with the environment. He has also worked on palaeoenvironmental history in China and North America. He was a Lecturer in Physical Geography and Experimental Officer in the Geography Department at Durham University. Now retired, he has continued to do research and publish papers on palaeoecology and environmental archaeology.

Anne Appleyard

Anne Appleyard (née GreatRex) was, until retirement, Principal Ecologist and Director of Greater Manchester Ecology Unit. She has a PhD in Quaternary Palaeoecology, specialising in the use of plant macrofossil and pollen analyses in investigations of plant succession in lakes. She applied these techniques to coastal sediments in a post-doctoral project at Durham University on changing sea level, followed by use of pollen analysis in research on human interference at sites in North Yorkshire. She currently undertakes plant recording, conservation management and ecological monitoring in a voluntary capacity.

Peter Ryan

Peter Ryan is a lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Manchester in the Quaternary Environments and Geoarchaeology research group, and has a PhD in Physical Geography. He is a palynologist and palaeoecologist with research interests in environmental archaeology. He has focused on the environmental context of the Mesolithic across much of northern Britain, but more recent projects have considered more recent time periods and from a wider geographical region including the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and the open peatlands of the Amazon.