Human impact on the Irish landscape during the late Holocene inferred from palynological studies at three peatland sites

Abstract

Pollen data covering the last 1200 years from a transect of three peatland sites across Ireland are reported. The data reveal reductions in woodland and increased anthropogenic activity over time. A decline in Corylus-type pollen at around AD 1750 was a dramatic and concurrent event at all three sites which coincided with more intensive land use. Multivariate data analysis reveals that prior to the Corylus-type decline distinct regional differences occurred between the sites, but that after it this regional variation was lost. It is concluded that more intense land use led to greater regional uniformity. Rising human population coincides with evidence for intense land use in the pollen data. The failure of the potato crop and the Great Famine of 1845 led to a population crash, but this had limited impact on the landscape. The imprint of human activity on the landscape over the last 1200 years appears to have overwhelmed any impacts that could be attributed solely to climatic change associated with the ‘Mediaeval Warm Period’, the ‘Little Ice Age’ or late twentieth-century warming.