Palaeoecological Evidence for the Prehistoric Settlement of Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, southwest England. Part II: Land Use Changes from the Neolithic to the Present

Abstract

Radiocarbon-dated pollen sequences from two areas of Bodmin Moor—Rough Tor in the north-west and the East Moor—are presented and the evidence for settlement in the prehistoric period on the moor considered. The nature and extent of human impact in the two areas are compared and the evidence for anthropogenic activity in the environmental record is related to that deduced from the archaeology. A tentative model of settlement and land use from the Neolithic to the Iron Age is proposed, with early activity in the Neolithic leading to a peak of settlement in the Bronze Age and continuing activity on the moor during the Iron Age and into the Romano-British period. Human activity may have begun in the earliest Neolithic and was possibly associated with construction of the hill top enclosure at Rough Tor. The Bronze Age peak of activity that is apparent in the archaeology is also represented in the palynological record. Activity in the Iron Age and later shows that the moorland was intensively used for grazing and probably hay production until settlement expanded back onto the uplands in the medieval period. This last phase resulted in the impoverishment of the soils and development of the current acid grassland and heath dominated vegetation of the moor. Finally, various suggestions are made for future research into the palaeoecology of Bodmin Moor.