Late Holocene human impact on the vegetation of southeastern Scotland: a pollen diagram from Dogden Moss, Berwickshire

Abstract

This paper presents a pollen diagram from Dogden Moss in Berwickshire which provides the first detailed record of human impact on vegetation in southeastern Scotland between the Bronze Age and the present day. The radiocarbon-dated pollen profile correlates with archaeological and historical records and suggests that the first extensive clearance of woodland occurred in the Iron Age and that this was a massive event during which the landscape was almost totally cleared of forest. Following a period of more subdued vegetation change, a renewed clearance occurred in early historical times which was associated with Monastic settlement and agriculture. Landscape and agricultural improvements which took place during the eighteenth and nineteenth century A.D. also had a dramatic impact on woodland composition and extent.