Postglacial Environmental History of Rannoch Moor, Scotland. I. Three Pollen Diagrams from the Kingshouse Area

Abstract

Pollen stratigraphic investigations are described from three sites on Rannoch Moor in the western Grampian Highlands of Scotland. The profiles are broadly similar and provide a detailed record of vegetational and environ- mental change in the Rannoch Moor area during the early and mid-Postglacial periods. Radiocarbon dates from the base of one profile suggest that glacier ice of the Loch Lomond Readvance had disappeared completely from Rannoch Moor well before 10000 BP, and that by that time dwarf shrub heaths of Empetrum and Juniperus had become firmly established throughout the region. This heathland vegetation cover was replaced first by birch, then by birch-hazel woodland, and subsequently by forests of pine and birch, and pine and alder. Deteriorating climatic conditions which resulted in accelerated rates of leaching, the growth of acid blanket peat, and a marked increase in areas of waterlogged ground, led to the gradual decline of trees and the progressive evolution of the present-day landscape of blanket peat and heather moor.