The ecodynamics of clearance in the British Neolithic

Abstract

The conventional view of Neolithic agriculture in the British Isles is that areas of woodland were cleared for cultivation and the grazing of domestic animals. Clearance was not always progressive, the fate of many clearances was abandonment after a couple of hundred years with fresh clearances being made elsewhere. The picture is further complicated because the middle Neolithic saw much more general woodland regeneration and presumably agricultural decline. However, it is argued that part of what is seen in the episodic nature of Neolithic agriculture is the utilisation of ‘Vera cycles’ as a means of gaining new open areas for agriculture. These cycles also encouraged the abandonment of old areas of grazing. has shown that in modern temperate deciduous woodland in the lowlands of Europe, heavy grazing-pressure prevents succession from leading to the establishment of a stable climax community of woodland. Instead it causes cycles of the invasion of grassland by thorn scrub, the succession of the scrub to shady woodland of trees such as oak and the eventual disintegration of that woodland to return to grassland.