Vegetation impacts and early Neolithic monumentality: A palaeoenvironmental case study from south-west Ireland

Abstract

New insights into prehistoric vegetation and human activities around a megalithic monument were inferred from a palaeoecological study at Arderrawinny, south-west Ireland. An early Neolithic portal tomb located c.500 m north-east of a small mire was investigated for pollen and loss on ignition analyses. This investigation provides a detailed reconstruction of the local vegetation development for the area surrounding the megalithic tomb, supported by 12 AMS 14C measurements and Bayesian modelling of palaeoecological and archaeological data. The palaeoecological record indicates a degree of ‘openness’ which was unusual in pre-Neolithic contexts in Ireland. Bayesian modelling of palaeoecological and archaeological chronologies intimates that evidence for woodland clearings preceded the construction of the megalith and suggests spatial separation between settlement, cultivation and ‘ritual’ activity in the early Neolithic. Despite low evidence for Neolithic agricultural, a potential correlation between human activity, as indicated by the presence of the nearby early Neolithic portal tomb, and the onset of the mid-Holocene ‘Elm Decline’ in the region is suggested.