Palaeoecological investigations of middle and late Flandrian buried peats on the Caldicot Levels, Severn Estuary, Wales

Abstract

Pollen, plant macrofossil, coleopteran, diatom and molluscan data, along with a suite of radiocarbon dates, are described from two middle to late Flandrian peat sequences (Vurlong Reen and Barland's Farm) that are buried beneath estuarine and/or marine sediments on the Caldicot Levels, southeast Wales. Radiocarbon age determinations on the basal pears indicate that these began to form following marine regression late in the seventh or early in the sixth millennium BP (measured in conventional 14 C years). The alder fen or carr that subsequently developed in this near-coastal environment was succeeded at Barland's Farm around 5000 14 C years BP by raised bog, and at Vurlong Reen at c. 4000 14 C years BP by sedge fen. There are indications of possible human activity at Vurlong Reen during the Neolithic, and at both sites throughout the Bronze Age. The present 'cultural landscape' of this part of South Wales appears to have been established by the middle to later Bronze Age. Marine transgression, beginning early in the third millennium BP and culminating, perhaps, some time after 2500 I4 C years BP, resulted in the inundation of the coastal mires and burial of the peats beneath several metres of estuarine silt and clay.