Pollen analysis at Paju Unjeong, South Korea: Implications of land-use changes since the late Neolithic

Abstract

Age-controlled pollen and microcharcoal records from Holocene sediments in Paju Unjeong, Korea, reflect the response of vegetation dynamics to climate changes and human activity. The pollen spectrum shows clear differences between the natural vegetation stage and the land-use vegetation stage. The land-use vegetation stage is further divided into dry-field cultivation and paddy-field cultivation stages. The natural vegetation stage ( c. 8420–4700 cal. BP, early Neolithic) indicates the presence of dense woodlands consisting of various deciduous broadleaved trees on well-drained hills to uplands during the mid-Holocene period. Early Neolithic foraging peoples occupied the area and collected wild plants and fruits, such as acorns. The land-use stage ( c. 4700 cal. BP, late Neolithic to Modern) reflects forest transition and, finally, Gramineae-dominated open landscape. During the dry-field cultivation stage ( c. 4700–2000 cal. BP, late Neolithic to Bronze Age), inhabitants may have used fire as the principal means to open lowland vegetation for occupation, wood reclamation, and artifact making. During the paddy-field cultivation stage ( c. 2000 cal. BP, Iron Age to Modern), inhabitants’ activities on adjacent open lowland increased. The local area became an extensive open landscape on which the Baekje people ( c. ad 0–100, first century in Korean chronology) utilized constant fires to manage woodlands at limited levels for more open habitat. Their descendents, the Joseon people ( c. ad 1600, seventeenth century in Korean chronology), utilized strategic management of pine trees as a secondary method to obtain wood material for building houses.