Palaeoecological investigations towards the reconstruction of woodland and land-use history at Lough Sheeauns, Connemara, western Ireland

Abstract

Results of palaeoecological investigations at Lough Sheeauns, a small lake in Connemara, western Ireland, are presented. The main pollen profile spans the period c. 9500 to 1500 B.P. and provides a detailed record of woodland and land-use history. The percentage, concentration and influx pollen diagrams are interpreted in the light of the results from a peat profile taken from near the lake margin and pollen analytical investigations of the recent lake sediment and of peat and peat-covered soils in the region. The rise of Pinus immediately prior to the expansion of Alnus (6700 B.P.) and its subsequent decline are interpreted in terms of low, followed by rising, lake levels. There is evidence for pre-Elm Decline Neolithic activity and, in the immediately post-Elm Decline, an intensive early Neolithic Landnam phase is recorded. It is argued that the Elm Decline is not ascribable to Neolithic activity; an explanation involving disease is favoured. On the basis of results of radiocarbon dating, the early Neolithic Landnam phase is estimated to have lasted 340 calendar years, with intensive pastoral-based farming lasting only c. 150 calendar years. For much of the mid and later Neolithic, palynological evidence for farming is lacking. In the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age (post 4100 B.P.) anthropogenic activity is again registered, at first weakly and then strongly towards the end of the Bronze Age (2900 B.P.). The characteristic lull in human activity known from elsewhere in Ireland is recorded in the late Iron Age (c. 2160 to 1810 B.P.). It is followed by an upsurge in anthropogenic indicators and a reversal in a 14C date. These changes reflect widespread woodland clearance and intensive farming activity in the catchment which are probably linked with early Christian settlement.