TY - JOUR
T1 - Living on the good soil
T2 - Relationships between soils, vegetation and human settlement during the late Allerød period in Denmark
AU - Mortensen, Morten Fischer
AU - Henriksen, Peter Steen
AU - Bennike, Ole
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Peter Friis Møller (GEUS) is thanked for allowing us to use unpublished radiocarbon dates of tree birch megafossils from Birkerød. We would also like to thank Catherine Jessen for translating the manuscript. MFM would personally like to thank Hilary Birks for her support and inspiration over the years of the Slotseng project. The preparation of this manuscript was carried out under the auspices of the National Museum of Denmark as part of the research initiative Northern Worlds and a collective project grant awarded to Charlie Christensen by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Humanities (FKK Ref. no. 273-08-0424).
PY - 2014/5
Y1 - 2014/5
N2 - The immigration of woody plants, especially Betula (tree birch), is examined in relation to geomorphological regions in a compilation of Late-glacial plant macrofossil records from Denmark. The immigration of trees led to a large ecological transformation of the landscape and had a major effect on the flora and fauna available to Palaeolithic people. We show that soil type was a controlling factor in the development of vegetation during the Allerød and Younger Dryas periods. Following the first immigration of trees during the Allerød period, woods became established in the eastern part of Denmark, where ice advances from the Baltic had deposited calcareous and clayey sediments. The western and northern parts of Denmark that are characterised by more sandy and non-calcareous sediments remained treeless throughout the whole Late-glacial period. Finds from the Bromme Culture are concentrated in the region which was wooded, suggesting that the regional variable environment allowed local adaptations using the diverse resources available.
AB - The immigration of woody plants, especially Betula (tree birch), is examined in relation to geomorphological regions in a compilation of Late-glacial plant macrofossil records from Denmark. The immigration of trees led to a large ecological transformation of the landscape and had a major effect on the flora and fauna available to Palaeolithic people. We show that soil type was a controlling factor in the development of vegetation during the Allerød and Younger Dryas periods. Following the first immigration of trees during the Allerød period, woods became established in the eastern part of Denmark, where ice advances from the Baltic had deposited calcareous and clayey sediments. The western and northern parts of Denmark that are characterised by more sandy and non-calcareous sediments remained treeless throughout the whole Late-glacial period. Finds from the Bromme Culture are concentrated in the region which was wooded, suggesting that the regional variable environment allowed local adaptations using the diverse resources available.
KW - Bromme Culture
KW - Late-glacial
KW - Macrofossils
KW - Palaeoecology
KW - Vegetational development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897674366&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00334-014-0433-7
DO - 10.1007/s00334-014-0433-7
M3 - Article
SN - 0939-6314
VL - 23
SP - 195
EP - 205
JO - Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
JF - Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
IS - 3
ER -
