| Page 987 | |
The first application of pollen analysis was to explore vegetation history in the 1920s, first in sweden by the geologist Lennart von Post (Erdtman 1967). The new science spread rapidly throughout northern and central Europe (including Russia) so that by 1927 more than 150 papers had been published (Erdtman 1927). In Great Britain, following Gunnar Erdtman (1924), a. j. h. godwin and M. E. Godwin (1933; H. Godwin 1940) began a long tradition of pollen analysis with archaeological connections. As pollen analysis developed in Europe (Faegri 1981), a significant development was the division of pollen diagrams into zones representing time phases with characteristic pollen records, first in denmark (Jessen 1935) and then somewhat similar schemes in other places such as Britain (Godwin 1940). These zonations provided the basis for the initial use of pollen analysis, as they provided a means of dating suitable sediments that was used for the next twenty years until the advent of radiocarbon dating. Erdtman listed the publications on palynology in the journal Geologiska Foreningens I Stockholm Forhandlingar each year from 1927 to 1955, thus providing thorough coverage of the early literature.
Early research worked out vegetation history, mostly that of woodlands, from the study mainly of tree and shrub pollen. This developed into study of the influences of climate and human activity on past vegetation (Bertsch 1928). Refinements in technique led to the identification of more types of pollen, particularly those of herbs, many of which (such as weeds) are important indicators of past human activity (Firbas 1934); for example, cereal pollen indicates farming (Firbas 1937). These refinements permitted the interpretation of certain features seen in pollen diagrams from natural deposits as the faint traces of the activities of the first farmers in the Neolithic period in Denmark (Iversen 1941) and in Norway (Faegri 1944).
One such feature is the elm decline, which is a noticeable and widespread reduction in elm pollen at a particular point in many pollen diagrams that is used to divide the Atlantic pollen zone from the succeeding subboreal one. There has been much discussion over the years whether the elm decline was caused by human activity, climatic change, or other factors.
Many pollen diagrams also show changes just above (after) the decline horizon, and Iversen (1941) elegantly showed that these probably represent prehistoric episodes of woodland clearance, farming, and abandonment, which he termed Landnam. The pattern of landscape change as a result of human activity has since been studied and dated in detail up to the present.
Recent archaeological palynology in central Europe has concentrated on particular aspects of archaeology, such as the detailed history of vegetation change as a result of human activity near a particular settlement area, such as H.-J. Beug’s (1992) study in northern Germany, covering the period from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages, in which the cereals wheat, barley, oats, rye, and millet are distinguished. Other work has concentrated upon a particular culture, such as A. J. Kalis’s (1988) work on the early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik, also in Germany.
Another development of archaeological palynology since the 1960s has been its extension to drier regions with fewer suitable deposits, such as the lands bordering the Mediterranean. Here the effects of human occupation are expressed rather differently when compared with human occupation effects further north. Beug (1962) worked on sites in Croatia while S. Bottema and H. Woldring (1990) have summarized results from the eastern Mediterranean region, K.-E. Behre (1990) those from the Near East, and A. C. Stevenson (1985) those from the western Mediterranean. In these areas, woodland disturbance swiftly led to its replacement by evergreen woods and then by scrub. Some typical crops such as Olea (“olive”) and Vitis (“vine”) are also recorded.
In North America, archaeological aspects of pollen analysis from natural sites have also been a minor interest compared with quaternary vegetation change as a whole. The effects of human
| |