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Print Publication Date: Mar 2015 Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of Europe
Online Publication Date: Jul 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199545841.013.062
Environments and Landscape Change
Tony Brown, Geoff Bailey, and Dave Passmore
The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe
Edited by Chris Fowler, Jan Harding, and Daniela Hofmann
 
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter reviews evidence for the nature and magnitude of environmental change in
Europe during the Neolithic incorporating evidence of climate change from mires, lakes,
and caves as well as event chronology including the use of tephras. Subsequently the
chapter reviews spatial approaches to vegetation change and interactions between environmental
change and lake, valley, and coastal settlement histories. Finally the chapter
introduces two novel aspects of Neolithic environmental change; empty and symbolic
spaces including high altitude environments and skyscapes, before discussing how we
might start linking environmental change, cultural transformations and cognition.
Keywords: Climate change, events, early agriculture, resilience
Environments, scale, and agendas 6500–2500
BC
THIS chapter considers the ‘environment’ between 6500–2500 BC, a period which encompasses
most of what archaeologists have regarded as ‘Neolithic’ within Europe. This enormous
stretch of time amounts to 40% of the Holocene sub-stage of the Pleistocene. At
about 10.2 million km , Europe as defined here is also large, equivalent to 7% of the
Earth’s landmass. It stretches over 35 of latitude and 50 of longitude and from just below
sea level to 5633 m in altitude (Mt Elbrus in the Caucasus). Two implications follow;
first, this chapter is necessarily an overview and highly selective, and secondly, ‘scale’ is
itself an important issue when dealing with any idea of the European Neolithic.
2
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Fig. 2.1. The present climates of Europe with local
Mediterranean winds derived from a variety of
sources.
The ‘scale’ problem becomes apparent when considering the record of climate change
across Europe. Europe has today a wide variety of local climates ranging from the ArcticAlpine
to the semi-desert. The only climates (sensu the Köppen climatic classification) it
does not have are the sub-polar continental, hyper-arid, and monsoon-dominated wet
tropical climates. Local climates are determined by latitude, continentality (effectively
longitude), and altitude. This can be illustrated by the variety of local winds which affect
the countries bordering the Mediterranean alone (Fig. 2.1). It is, however, possible to
identify common forcing conditions (pattern of global pressures and temperatures) for
this region due to the underlying importance of the Westerlies and therefore conditions
over the north Atlantic. So, for example, even the Mediterranean parts of Europe are under
the influence of westerly cyclonic tracks for the delivery of precipitation. The extent
to which these air masses penetrate into Europe is controlled through blocking by eastern
high pressure systems. The Azores High and (p. 28) North Atlantic High also affect
the path of these Westerlies over Europe and this control has been associated with differential
climate change in northern and southern Europe. From these synoptic constraints
it is apparent that the Holocene climate of Europe would have been closely related to
fluctuations in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index and to both El Nino–Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) and the thermohaline circulation (THC), and through these ultimately
to global factors such as variations in solar output (so-called sub-Milankovitch forcing)
and astronomically forced variations in solar influx (Milankovitch forcing). However, the
European landmass is characterized by small–medium altitude mountain ranges especially
at about 42 –47 of latitude (Picos de Europe, Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians)
which create strong orographic (p. 29) (topographic relief induced) patterning including
rain-shadows and local winds, both now and in the past.
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Neolithic European Climates from Lakes and
Bogs
Over the past 20 years there has been an explosion of research into Holocene climatic
change, driven by the need to test global and regional climate models and by the prevailing
ideological belief that climate change is the greatest scientific challenge of the
present age. Within Europe, appropriate geochemical and biological climate proxies covering
this period can be derived from lake sediments, raised mires, and alluvial sequences.
Probably the most comprehensive source of palaeoclimatic data is the lake level
record, which covers both southern and northern Europe. Within the Global Lake Level
Database there are over 700 records from Europe (Prentice et al. 1996) which have been
used by the BIOME 6000 project to map vegetation patterns. The Alpine region, being in
the centre of Europe, is probably the most valuable. One of the most comprehensive data
sets is provided by 26 lakes in the Jura Mountains (Magny 2004), from which 15 phases of
higher lake levels were identified, four within the Neolithic (Table 2.1). In a more recent
study of Lake Le Bourget in France, Arnaud et al. (2005) have correlated the lake level
record with at least three periods of flooding by the Rhone, suggesting that this record is
applicable for the entire western Alps region. Studies of lake levels in southern Europe
are less common but several crater lakes in Italy have produced long sequences, such as
Lago Grande di Monticchio, which shows rather subdued Lateglacial interstadials and
Younger Dryas with relative climatic stability in the early Holocene (Allen et al. 2002).
This is in contrast to northern Africa where there is abundant evidence of wetter conditions
well into the Neolithic (Roberts 1998).
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Table 2.1 Climatic shifts (dry in italics, wet in bold) during the Neolithic identified from mire and lake records in Eu­
rope.
Sites Dates BP Data Postulated cause References
Temple Hill Moss,
Scotland
6850
6650
6350
5850
5300
4850
plant macrofossils
and testate amoe­
bae
millennial scale climatic
periodicities
Langdon et al. 2003
Walton Moss, northern
England
7700–6700
c. 5300
plant macrofossils millennial scale climatic
periodicities
Hughes et al. 2000,
Barber 2007
Bolton Fell Moss,
northern England
and Abbeynockmoy,
Scotland
c. 4400–4000 plant macrofossils solar forcing Barber et al. 2003
Mallachie Moss,
Scotland
4450
4650
plant macrofossils wetter climate Langdon and Barber
2005
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Lille Vildmose, Jutland,
Denmark and
Butterburn Flow,
northern England
c. 4150 wiggle–match AMS
dating of plant
macrofossils and
testate amoebae
decline in solar ac­
tivity
Mauquoy et al.
2008
Jura, France (26
lakes)
8300–8050
7550–7250
6350–5900
4850–4800
sedimentological
phases dated by
14C, tree-rings, and
archaeology
solar activity Magny et al. 2004
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One climatic event during the early Neolithic that has received attention is the so-called
8.2 ka event. Analyses of seasonally laminated varved sediments from Holzmaar in southern
Germany provide evidence of differences in duration and onset time of changes in
summer temperature and winter rainfall during this event (Prasad et al. 2009). The data
show that the onset and termination of the summer cooling occurred within a year, and
that summer rains were reduced or absent during the investigated period. The onset of
cooler summers preceded the onset of winter dryness by c. 28 years and statistical analysis
of the varves indicates that the longer NAO cycles, linked to changes in the north Atlantic
sea-surface temperatures, were more frequent during the drier periods. This suggests
that the event is likely to have been associated with perturbation of the north Atlantic
sea surface temperatures. This work is helpful in that it helps us define the magnitude
of climatic perturbations which could have affected some early Neolithic communi­
ties.
(p. 30) Climatic reconstruction from bog surface wetness (BSW) has the advantage of
more reliable and higher resolution dating than can be achieved for most lakes. However,
it depends upon the continuous or semi-continuous growth of raised rain fed (ombrogenous)
mires (Barber 2006), restricting its application to northern Scandinavia, European
Russia, the western seaboard as far south as the southern English lowlands, or mountainous
‘outlier’ regions as far south as north-west Spain (Cortizas et al. 2002) and mount
Troodos in Cyprus (Ioannidou et al. 2008). Most raised mires start as lakes and in the early
Holocene become groundwater–fed fens, at some point—most commonly sometime in
the Neolithic—going through a fen-bog transition. This means that the number of BSW
curves for the Neolithic is restricted temporally and geographically. This work has its origins
in the climatic stratigraphy of mires used to formulate the Blytt-Sernander climatic
scheme (Sub-Boreal to Sub-Atlantic covering the Neolithic and Bronze Ages) and the
overturning of the autogenic theory of bog-regeneration by Barber in 1981 provided the
stimulus for many studies of increasingly higher temporal resolution (Charman et al.
2007). The method of using macrofossils of Sphagnum spp. and peat humification has
been applied in environmental transects (Barber et al. (p. 31) 2000) and combined with
other proxies such as pollen, testate amoebae (Hendon and Charman 1997; Charman et
al. 1999), and most recently ∂ O and ∂D from plant macrofossils (Brenninkmeijer et al.
1982; Barber 2006). Temporal resolution has been improved by both wiggle-matching and
the use of in situ tephra deposits (Mauquoy et al. 2004; Plunkett 2006) and at the best
sites a decadal resolution is claimed (Mauquoy et al. 2008) which is as fine, if not finer,
than the dating of most archaeological sites within the Neolithic.
One reason for generally trusting these climatic reconstructions is the correlation between
them and a vast array of other proxies, including later written records from the
post-Roman period. Well known historical climatic ‘events’ often derived from soft data,
such as the late Medieval climatic deterioration (Lamb 1977), the Medieval Warm Period,
and the Little Ice Age, are also clearly shown in the mire-derived data sets (Barber 1981).
For the prehistoric period BSW data has been correlated with a variety of both global and
regional proxies, including the European lake level record (Magny et al. 2004), ice drift
records from the north Atlantic (Bond et al. 2001), and ocean core proxies for the North
18
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Fig. 2.2. Proxy climatic reconstruction from two
raised mires in the UK.
Adapted from Hughes et al. (2000) and Barber et al.
(2003).
Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) circulation (Chapman and Shackleton 2000). In terms of the
causal mechanism, most interest has focused on solar events (van Geel et al. 1996;
Mauquoy et al. 2004). However, no such solar episodes have so far been identified in the
Neolithic and it is likely that solar activity was moderated or overwhelmed by other factors,
particularly ocean circulation, especially in the western European seaboard. Most
studies have shown a statistical climatic periodicity in the mid–late Holocene (Aaby 1976;
Langdon et al. 2003; Blundell and Barber 2005; Swindles et al. 2007) with values of 200
years (Chambers and Blackford 2001; Plunkett, 2006), 265 and 373–423 years (Swindles
et al. 2007), 550 years (Hughes et al. 2000), 560 years (Blundell and Barber 2005), 580
years (Swindles et al. 2007), 600 years (Hughes et al. 2000), and 1,100 years (Langdon et
al. 2003). These can be compared with periodicities in other proxy data such as 210, 400,
512 and 550, 1,000, and 1,600 years in tree rings and ocean core-data (Chapman and
Shackleton 2000; Rosprov et al. 2001). Although most of the records used in these studies
start around the end of the Neolithic or in the Bronze Age (e.g. Charman et al. 2006), it is
highly unlikely that these quasi-rhythmic climatic fluctuations started at this time. They
probably started prior to the Neolithic in the early Holocene during the re-arrangement
of the northern hemispheric circulation system following deglaciation.
Traditionally the Neolithic has been regarded as a period of relative climatic stability
dominated by the Holocene thermal optimum at c. 7500 BP, when temperatures were 1–
2 C warmer than today (Davis et al. 2003), and then a climatic deterioration c. 6500 BP
(Karlen and Larsson 2007). In the original Blytt-Sernander climatic sub-division of the
Holocene the Neolithic spans the later part of the Boreal (10500–7800 BP), the Atlantic
(7800–5700 BP), and the early part of the Sub-Boreal (5700–2600 BP). The Boreal Atlantic
boundary was largely based on a ‘recurrence’ surface or Grenzhorizont (layers of
sudden change in peat humification caused by a change in climate) common in Swedish
bogs (Barber 1981), whilst the climatic optimum was based upon biostratigraphic data
such as thermophilious (warm adapted) vegetation in northern Europe (p. 32) and the oc­
o
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currence of the pond tortoise (Emys orbicularis) outside its present-day breeding range
(Stuart 1979). Another classical indicator of the mid-Holocene thermal optimum is high
rates of ambient-temperature carbonate or tufa (calcareous spring deposits) deposition
(Goudie et al. 1993). Although tufas continue to be deposited outside the mid-Holocene
(Baker and Sims 1998), their occurrence is reduced. Tufas can also provide stable isotopic
temperature records from a wide range of terrestrial and lacustrine sources
throughout Europe, as well as through inferences from floral and faunal remains (Ford
and Pedley 1996; Gedda 2006; Davies et al. 2006). Both of these thermal indicators are
rather complicated but not invalid, and the concept of the thermal optimum remains
valid, although the record of raised mires shows relative BSW stability during the Neolithic
at least for north-west Europe. For example, only a few mires such as Temple Hill
Moss and Walton Moss show short-lived wet phases (Langdon et al. 2003), (Fig. 2.2). Local
variability is shown by the state of Scottish mires before, during, and after the deposition
of the Hekla-4 tephra at 2310±20 BC (Langdon and Barber 2004). In the absence of
definitive Europe-wide studies of BSW in the sixth millennium BC, it is probably safest to
assume a relatively gradual shift to the cooler and wetter conditions during the late Ne­
olithic.
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Table 2.2 Major volcanic events in the European Neolithic and some
published dated tephras. Data from the tephrabase (Newton et al.
2007) and other sources.
Eruptive
source
Name/ Lo­
cation
recorded
from
Date Reference
Southern
Italy;
Campi Flegrei
caldera
Agnano
Monte
Spina
Tephra
(AMST)
4690–4300BP Blockley et al.
2008
Central
Anatolian
Volcanic
Province
(CAVP)
Eski
Acigol
10 tephra layers
between
14,300/11,300
and 8150/5000
years BP
Kuzucuoglu et
al. 1998
Iceland Hekla-4 2350–2250 BC Pilcher et al.
1996
Iceland Hekla-5 c. 6800 BP (5050
BC)
Smithsonian
Institution’s
Global Volcanism
Program
(GVP)
Iceland Hoy Tephra,
Keith’s Peat
Bank
5560±90 C
years BP
Dugmore et al.
1995
Iceland Lairg tephra
A, Sluggan
Bog, northern
Ireland
6036±20 C
years BP
Pilcher et al.
1996
Iceland Lairg tephra
B, Sluggan
Bog, northern
Ireland
5811±20 C
years BP
Pilcher et al.
1996
14
14
14
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Iceland Mjauvotn A
& B, Eidi,
Faroe Isles
5910±45 C
years BP
Wastegard et
al. 2001
(p. 33) At the end of the Neolithic, one of the most significant shifts in the climate of Europe
occurs. The ‘4.2 Ka event’ has been identified from a number of proxies including
the ocean and ice cores (Bond et al. 1997; Brown 2008), from a severe drought event in
eastern Africa, and from increased sand movement in coastal dune systems along the
eastern Atlantic coast (Gilbertson et al. 1999; Knight and Burningham, 2011). In the
British Isles it has been identified as a cool/wet phase from the BSW record of a number
of sites in northern England (Chiverrell 2001; Charman et al. 2006; Barber and Langdon
2007) and Scotland (Langdon and Barber 2005), and from combined BSW and chironomid
data from Talkin Tarn in northern England (Barber and Langdon 2007).
This climatic chronology will probably be further refined in the next few years with the increasing
use of tephra layers, but the broad pattern is unlikely to change. A problem is
what these shifts mean in climatic terms and how these bog-proxies relate to other hydroclimatic
variables. As Barber (2006) has emphasized, the BSW proxy is a composite measure
of past climate, principally because a change to a more continental climatic regime
is likely to alter the relative importance of precipitation and temperature. Even for the
present oceanic climate of north-west Europe, there is a correlation between temperature
and precipitation at least at the mean annual scale (Barber 2006). At the annual scale the
linking factor is the correlation between summer precipitation and the winter NAO index
(Kettlewell et al. 2003), which is also correlated strongly with changes in mean annual
temperature, and on the longer term the THC. Given these complications (p. 34) it is best
to regard the BSW record as principally a response to north Atlantic sea surface temperatures
transmitted through prevailing synoptic regimes and the resultant summer water
deficit. Perhaps more attention should be paid to the dry shifts, which may also have significant,
if not greater, archaeological implications.
Two other palaeoclimatic techniques, probably more closely related to variations in precipitation
and applicable to the Neolithic, are speleothem (stalagtites, stalagmites, flowstones)
luminescence and stable isotope studies. Due to its geological history, Europe is
especially rich in limestone cavern systems and speleothem/tufa/travertine deposits.
Long-term variations in the intensity of the luminescence under UV light of the growth
bands within a speleothem can be related to climate and especially precipitation (Baker
et al. 1999), although it is also sensitive to local vegetation change (Baldini et al. 2005).
Using data from both mires and speleothems from Sutherland in north-west Scotland,
Charman et al. (2001) have shown a correlation between peat humification, speleothem
luminescence emission wavelength, and ice-sheet accumulation. The use of speleothems
has further potential to produce regional data in areas lacking ombrotrophic mires such
as south-west England, north-west Scotland, northern Norway (Lauritzen and Lundberg
1999; McDermott et al. 2001), and southern Europe. Due to the frequent occurrence of
annual luminescence laminae this technique has high potential to record annual climatic
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data, although so far most studies have focused on the short-term fluctuations in climate
recorded over the last one to two millennia (Jackson et al. 2008).
Mapping Neolithic Vegetation Change
Many of the lake studies have produced direct evidence of vegetation from pollen and
plant macrofossils. During the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) most of Europe was dominated
by Artemisia (mugwort) and Chenopodiaceae (goosefoot) steppe, but many refugia existed:
evergreen oak (Quercus ilex) type woodland survived in Sierra Nevada; Atlantic
cedar (Cedrus atlantica) and pistachio (Pistacia spp) existed in the Apennines and Balkans;
and oak, pistachio, and olive survived together in the Levant (van Zeist and Bottema
1991) suggesting re-colonization of Europe from the east. Herb-steppe was replaced in
the early Holocene by sub-humid forest sometimes dominated by conifers but more typically
by broad-leaved deciduous trees. The xeric (drought tolerant) evergreen forests,
shrub, and heathland now typical of the Mediterranean part of Europe are rarely represented
in early Holocene pollen diagrams. Attempts to map the Neolithic vegetation of
Europe have produced a vegetation pattern closely resembling the climatic pattern shown
in Fig. 2.1, but this uniformity is rather misleading since biogeographical, topographic,
and edaphic factors pattern vegetation at the regional and sub-regional scale (Skinner
and Brown 1999). The composition of the mixed deciduous forest varied from north to
south. Oak-birch-hazel dominate its northern limits, lime-oak-hazel the south, and oak
(deciduous and evergreen)-hazel-hornbeam the southern fringes. Similarly, the structure
of these forests, including the occurrence of natural clearings (p. 35) and openings, reflected
the spatially variable disturbance regime, including factors like wind-throw, animal
activity (particularly beaver), disease, and snowfall. Indeed, the most well-known
Holocene vegetation event in northern Europe, the ‘elm decline’ of around 5300 BP, is
now commonly regarded as being due to disease and progressive forest clearance by Neolithic
farmers. These allowed the beetle vector, Scolytus scolytus, to spread, transforming
local outbreaks in to a pandemic (Clark and Edwards 2004; Edwards 2004). It is also
clear that Neolithic woodland was not stable, with increasing evidence of mid-Neolithic
woodland regeneration in England (Brown 1999), Scotland (Tipping 1995, 2010, 2012),
and Ireland (O’Connell and Molloy 2001). At present it is not clear if this was due to declining
fertility, agricultural decline, or climatic perturbations, but all these hypotheses
are testable. There is also pollen, charcoal, and phytolith evidence of middle Neolithic
woodland management, or so-called agro-sylvo-pastoral systems along the middle Rhone
Valley (Delhorn et al. 2009). This evidence is clearly of relevance to our views of the mobile
or semi-sedentary nature of early Neolithic farmers (Bogaard 2002, 2004), population
densities, and their connections to the land and with other groups (Edmonds 1999).
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Fig. 2.3. Dendrochonologically dated wild animal
bone frequencies and cultures from eastern and
western Swiss Neolithic lake villages.
Adapted from Schibler (unpublished) by permission.
Lake and Wetland Settlement
One of the most climatically sensitive aspects of the archaeological record is lake and
wetland settlement, which, due to high precision dendrochronology dating and good
preservation of organic remains (seeds and animal bones), has great potential for investigating
the impact of short climatic fluctuations on Neolithic economies and societies.
Studies of lakes in the Alpine foreland have shown a remarkable correlation between climate
proxies such as the C calibration curve and palaeoeconomic data, suggesting that
during phases of wet-cold climate wild resources like game were more intensively exploited
(Schibler et al. 1997; Hüster-Plogmann et al. 1999; Arbogast et al. 2006; Schibler and
Jacomet 2009). Whether this is a result of decreased cereal yields or some other cause is
as yet unknown. Even more archaeologically important is that there is no correlation
between these phases and ‘cultures’ as defined using pottery (Fig. 2.3). This suggests a
disconnection between changes in material culture and changes in food procurement.
Catchments, Valleys, Sediments, and Settle­
ment
European river valley environments span a vast range of topographic and altitudinal settings,
encompassing glaciated alpine mountain torrents, terraced river corridors, and extensive
low-relief alluvial and estuarine settings on the coastal fringe. Neolithic communities
were present in many of these settings, becoming well established in estuarine
(p. 36) (p. 37) environments (see below) and extending into relatively high elevation up­
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land localities. Indeed, palynological studies suggest that localized cereal cultivation was
occurring from early Neolithic times at altitudes of up to nearly 2,000m above sea level in
the alpine valleys of France (Argant et al. 2006; Martin et al. 2008), Switzerland (Welten
1977), and Italy (Pini 2002). In general, however, it is the valley floors in the middle and
lower reaches of European river systems that were especially important for Neolithic settlement,
offering well-defined and frequently navigable routeways. The Danube and Rhine
systems were particularly influential in the dispersal of Neolithic culture across Europe
(Roberts 1998; Dolukhanov and Shukurov 2004; Davison et al. 2006). River valleys also
offered ready access to freshwater, a rich array of resources, and in many cases low-relief,
free-draining Pleistocene river terraces relatively free from flood-risk. Archaeological
evidence of Neolithic settlement and especially ritual activities are widely documented on
Pleistocene terrace surfaces, for example in valleys of the Trent catchment in the English
Midlands (Knight and Howard 2004; Brown 2009a, 2009b), the middle Rhone valley in
France (Beeching et al. 2000; Delhon et al. 2009), the Upper Odra basin in Poland (Zygmunt
2009), the Chienti basin in Italy (Farabollini et al. 2009), and the well-known site of
Lepenski Vir on the Danube in Serbia (Borić 2002). In both northern and southern England,
early Neolithic settlement was apparently initiated from river valley floors and estuarine
and coastal lowlands, before late Neolithic and early Bronze Age expansion on to
higher elevations and upland terrain hitherto unoccupied or utilized for subsistence activities
(e.g. Thomas 1999; Waddington 1999; Garrow 2007; Passmore and Waddington 2012).
As well as proving attractive for settlement, fertile and well-drained soils developed on
Pleistocene sand and gravel terraces and low-relief catchments developed on loessic
plains were favourable localities for pioneering early Neolithic agriculture (which is
hence rarely detected on regional-scale pollen diagrams derived from upland peats; cf.
Brown 1997, 2008). Although Mesolithic communities are widely thought to have manipulated
the early Holocene woodland cover (Brown 1997), the early–mid Holocene temperate
forests of Europe seemingly experienced little or no detectable soil erosion (e.g. Bork
et al. 1998; Seidel and Mackel 2007). The arrival of Neolithic agricultural systems, embracing
both domesticated livestock and arable cultivation, introduced a deliberate
process of woodland management, clearance, and tillage that lowered landscape erosion
thresholds, thereby creating the first significant possibility of impacting on river catchment
sediment and hydrological systems.
The considerable interest in exploring the geomorphological impact of early farming is
therefore not surprising. The impact of land-use changes on geomorphological activity in
valley systems may be reflected in a variety of contexts, including hillslope erosion and
gully development, sedimentation in colluvial and alluvial settings, river channel incision,
and elevated water tables (Foulds and Macklin 2009; Fuchs et al. 2010). However, our
ability to detect Neolithic land-use activities in the landform and sediment archive of river
valleys faces several challenges. These include the often fragmentary preservation (or
removal) of sedimentary archives by later erosion, difficulties in establishing accurate
chronological controls, and the potential for complex and possibly (p. 38) multiple phases
of sediment erosion, transfer, and storage occurring downslope/downvalley of landscapes
Environments and Landscape Change
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Fig. 2.4. The probability density function of alluvial
radiocarbon dates for upland and lowland river
catchments in Great Britain during the Neolithic.
Adapted from Johnstone et al. (2006).
hosting Neolithic activities (e.g. Lewin and Macklin 2003; Houben et al. 2006; Brown et
al. 2009).
These difficulties are perhaps most readily addressed in relatively small catchments or
sub-catchments, where archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records can be compared
to landform and sediment archives in the immediate vicinity (Hoffmann et al.
2007), and where the potential for intermediate sediment storage and reworking is greatly
reduced. Such studies have reported evidence of late Neolithic valley colluviation, as
well as alluvial fan and (or) floodplain alluviation linked to the onset of deforestation and
localized arable cultivation for localities in Britain (e.g. Brown and Barber 1985; Evans et
al. 1993; Bell 1983; French et al. 1992; Collins et al. 2006; see also review by Macklin
1999), western France (Macaire et al. 2006), loess-covered valleys in southern Germany
(e.g. Kalis et al. 2003; Lang 2003; Hoffmann et al. 2007; Fuchs et al. 2010), and Poland
(Klimek 2003). Neolithic catchment disturbance has also been inferred from accelerated
rates of inorganic sediment accumulation in some lake sediment records, including sites
in Britain and Ireland (Pennington 1978; Edwards and Whittington 2001), Germany
(Zolitschka 1998), and the French Massif Central (Macaire et al. 2010).
A broader perspective on Neolithic interactions with river environments may be obtained
from countrywide reviews and comparisons of Holocene valley floor development
throughout Britain (Johnstone et al. 2006; Lewin et al. 2005; Macklin et al. 2006, 2009;
Brown et al. 2013), Spain (Thorndycraft and Benito 2006), Poland (Starkel et al. 2006),
Germany (Hoffmann et al. 2008; Fuchs et al. 2010), and France (Arnaud-Fassetta et al.
2010) (Fig. 2.4). By exploiting the growing number of published and well-dated catchment
landform and sediment records and adopting an increasingly robust approach to selecting,
interpreting, and analysing C-dated colluvial and alluvial sequences (cf. Johnstone
et al. 2006; Macklin et al. 2009), these studies indicate that the geomorphological
impact of anthropogenic land-use change is seldom widely evident until the marked intensification
of woodland clearance and agricultural activity from the Bronze Age and later
periods. Rather, Neolithic channel and floodplain environments experienced relatively little
direct human intervention, often maintaining a cover of alder-dominated woodland
14
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and wetland habitats (e.g. Knight and Howard 2004; Tipping 1998; Thorndycraft and Benito
2006) amidst meandering (e.g. Starkel 2002; Dambeck and Thiemeyer 2002) or anastomosing
(Knight and Howard 2004; Brown 2008) channel systems.
However, countrywide and sub-continental scales of analysis show periods in the early–
mid Holocene which experienced broadly synchronous phases of accelerated fluvial activity,
and which have been linked to the emerging record of periodic shifts to a cooler and/
or wetter climate (Figs 2.2 and 2.4). Macklin and Lewin’s (2008) synthesis of the British,
Spanish, and Polish records identified four such phases in the Neolithic, centred on 7590
BP (Spain, Poland), 6790–6820 BP (Britain, Poland), 5540–5640 BP (Britain, Spain), and
4840–4860 BP (Britain, Spain, Poland). Enhanced Neolithic flooding was also evident in
Poland at 8400, 6250, and 5920 BP, and in Britain at 4520 BP. In German parts of the
Rhine, Danube, Weser, and Elbe catchments, Hoffmann et al. (p. 39) (2008) also found
broadly corresponding phases of accelerated Neolithic activity centred on 7475 and 5640
BP respectively. An additional early Neolithic activity phase at 8200 BP appeared largely
confined to colluvial systems in smaller catchments. The 8.2k event is also evident in
French catchments as a period of enhanced frequency and/or magnitude of flooding in
the middle Loire, and as increased fluvial activity in the Durant and southern Alps; a similar
pattern of activity occurs c. 6300 BP, although the record from the southern Alps suggests
valley floors here were incising at this time (Arnaud-Fassetta et al. 2010 and references
therein).
Both Hoffmann et al. (2008) and Arnaud-Fassetta et al. (2010) found Holocene fluvial activity
phases in German and French valley floors, respectively, to show only limited correlation
with those identified by Macklin and Lewin (2008) in British, Spanish, and Polish
records. This is considered to reflect, at least in part, differing approaches to the classification
of C dates and the analysis of frequency distributions, but for Arnaud-Fassetta et
al. (2010) this contrast in the intensity of fluvial activity between mid-latitude European
rivers and those in northern and southern Europe hints at a sub-continental tripartite division
of European hydrosystems during the early–mid Holocene.
Current research agendas focusing on multiple scales of analysis (both spatial and temporal)
and the quantitative modelling of fluvial system response to environmental change
will refine our understanding of these issues (e.g. Arnaud-Fassetta et al. 2010; Hoffmann
et al. 2010). What is clear from current evidence is that Neolithic land-use activities were
rarely sufficient to promote detectable changes to channel and floodplain environments in
the middle and lower reaches of larger European catchments. However, Neolithic communities
were accustomed to flood hazard and the inherent rhythms of (p. 40) river channel
adjustments, especially with respect to meander migration and occasional channel cut-off.
During phases of cooler and/or wetter climate they also witnessed a change in the frequency
and magnitude of flooding, alongside a change in the rate and possibly the style
of channel and floodplain development.
14
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Changing Coastlines and Coastal Communities
Europe has a strongly maritime character, with heavily indented coastlines and many
large peninsulas, offshore islands, and archipelagos. Few areas of Neolithic Europe would
have been far from contact with their nearest coastline, even if that contact was an indirect
one through trade or exchange over hundreds of kilometres, as evidenced by the
movement of the marine bivalve Spondylus shell ornaments from the Aegean to Neolithic
sites in central Europe (Chapman and Gaydarska, this volume). Coastlines also played an
important role as sources of marine food, raw materials, and items of value or decoration;
as a medium of communication, travel, and trade by sea; and as sources of inspiration for
myth and metaphor.
Marine environmental conditions cover an immense range, from the Arctic to the
Mediterranean and from exposed Atlantic coastlines to the protected and tideless basins
of the Baltic and the Black Sea. Productivity generally follows a north-west–south-east
gradient. Shallow areas of continental shelf, mixing of the water column by tides and
storms, and upwelling currents ensure high levels of marine fertility on north Atlantic and
North Sea coastlines, and an abundance of marine mammals and fish. The extensive intertidal
flats of large river estuaries and inlets support large beds of bivalve molluscs, and
rocky shorelines have relatively abundant supplies of limpets and other gastropods. The
Mediterranean is much less productive, with limited tidal movement and clogging of major
river estuaries by rapid sediment accumulation, although all types of marine resources
are available, from top predators such as monk seals and tuna fish to molluscs.
Least productive is the eastern Mediterranean, where temperature gradients trap nutrients
at a depth beyond the reach of photosynthesis. The Baltic and Black Sea are intermediate,
with little tidal movement, but inflow of nutrients from the surrounding land.
Although agriculture is generally regarded as the dominant mode of production, marine
resources continued to be widely exploited. Palaeodietary reconstructions based on stable
isotope measurements of human skeletons in parts of Britain and Denmark suggest
that marine foods were ignored by some Neolithic people in coastal regions (Richards and
Hedges 1999). However, the interpretation of the evidence is controversial (Bailey and
Milner 2002; Milner et al. 2004, 2006; Hedges 2004; Richards and Schulting 2006), and
archaeological sites show continuing exploitation of fish, sea mammals, and shellfish
throughout the coastal regions of Britain, Scandinavia (Clark 1983; Lidén et al. 2004; Milner
et al. 2004), south-west Europe (Boyle 2005; Milner et al. (p. 41) 2007), and the
Mediterranean (Jacobsen 1968; Tagliacozzo 1993). Submerged Mesolithic and Neolithic
fish weirs discovered in Denmark show that the Neolithic examples, as at Nekselø, extended
several hundred metres out from the seashore and were larger and stronger than
their Mesolithic counterparts (Fischer 2007). For many farming communities in coastal
regions, marine resources could provide an important alternative during periods of the
year when agricultural products were in short supply (Deith 1988; Milner 2001, 2002).
Settlements in northerly regions beyond the range of reliable crop agriculture would always
have depended on the sea for a major part of their livelihood.
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Seafaring played an important role in fishing and sea-mammal hunting, trade, and population
movement. At least one pathway of agricultural dispersal into Europe followed the
northern shorelines of the Mediterranean, implying seaborne movements. Occupation of
Mediterranean islands and the British Isles required the use of seaworthy boats to import
crops and animals and exchange raw materials, even if, as now seems likely, Neolithic
colonists were not the earliest seafarers in Europe (Anderson et al. 2010). The distribution
of megalithic tombs has been linked in some areas to the seasonal movements of migratory
fish (Clark 1977). Dugout canoes and skin-covered frame boats were already used
in the Mesolithic. The earliest timber-planked boats are recorded from the Bronze Age,
but were probably also built in the Neolithic, with the sail most probably in use by the
late Neolithic in the eastern Mediterranean (Broodbank 2010).
Much of what might be learned about Neolithic coastal environments may be missing because
of sea-level change (Pirazzoli, 1991). At the LGM, 20,000 years ago, the sea level
was over 100m lower than present and additional territory amounting to some 40% of the
current European landmass was exposed on the continental shelf. The loss of territory as
sea levels rose with the melting of the ice sheets after 16,000 years had profound effects
on the ecology, demography, and social geography of prehistoric Europe, offset to some
extent by climatic amelioration and the opening up of new hinterlands. These changes
were especially dramatic in shallow areas such as the North Sea (Coles 1998; Flemming
1998, 2004; Gaffney et al. 2009), with their biggest impacts during the late Upper Palaeolithic
and Mesolithic. The eustatic (glacial meltwater) contribution to sea-level change
was completed with a final sea-level rise of about 15m between 8,000 and 6,000 years
ago according to global estimates from deep sea records (Lambeck 1995, 1996; Lambeck
and Chappell 2001; Siddall et al. 2003), which overlaps with the early Neolithic in southern
Europe.
Additional geological processes affecting sea-level change likely affected Neolithic coastlines
more widely. These processes include coastal subsidence or uplift at a local or regional
scale in response to tectonic and volcanic effects, particularly in the eastern
Mediterranean, and isostatic rebound or subsidence of coastlines following the melting of
the ice sheets, particularly in northern Europe. Geophysical models provide estimates of
crustal movement (Lambeck et al. 2006; Peltier and Luthcke 2009), but precise changes
can only be established by dating local palaeoshorelines, using evidence of submerged archaeological
sites, shoreline biomarkers, or sediments such as peat (Shennan and Andrews
2000; Stewart and Morhange 2009). All these sources show that changes of relative
sea level continued to occur in many areas during the Neolithic, with variable (p. 42)
impacts depending on local topography and bathymetry, and that an important part of the
coastal Neolithic in many regions now lies submerged on the seabed, as for earlier periods
(Benjamin et al. 2011).
The most dramatic isostatic effects were in regions close to centres of glaciation. In Scotland
and northern Scandinavia there was coastal rebound, with coastlines lifting as much
as 200m in northern Norway. Around the southern rim of the North Sea and the southern
Baltic, there has been ongoing subsidence, with a corresponding loss of coastal territory
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and settlements. In Denmark and along the Baltic shoreline of northern Germany,
Mesolithic and Neolithic settlements are now submerged in several metres of water (Fischer
2004; Harff et al. 2007). Partially or totally submerged settlements and megalithic
sites have been recorded on both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines of France
(Geddes et al. 1983; Prigent et al. 1983; Cassen et al. 2011). In the Bulgarian sector of the
Black Sea, Neolithic sites submerged by tectonic subsidence have been recovered (Filipova-Marinova
et al. 2011). In the eastern Mediterranean, the pre-pottery Neolithic B site of
Atlit Yam, Israel, was a coastal village practising farming and fishing and is now submerged
in 11m of water (Galili et al. 1993). A Neolithic site on the Aegean island of
Aghios Petros, Greece, is partially submerged (Flemming 1983), and recent underwater
surveys at Bova Marina on the Calabrian coastline of Italy have drawn attention to the
loss of a significant increment of land during the early Neolithic (Foxhall 2005). These
changes would also have modified the ecology and configuration of resources available on
the local coastline, removed land of potential value for livestock and agriculture, and perhaps
influenced Neolithic cosmologies and perceptions of landscape.
More dramatic effects have been claimed in the Black Sea region by Ryan et al. (1997),
who used the sedimentary record on the seafloor to infer a catastrophic flood event 7,200
years ago, supposedly resulting from the overtopping of the Bosphorus sill by sea-level
rise in the Mediterranean. This in its turn is supposed to have caused widespread dislocation
of low-lying settlements on the shores of the Black Sea and triggered the dispersal of
farming communities into south-east Europe. However, the geological evidence and the
likely human consequences are now not widely accepted. Between 20,000 and 7,200
years ago the Black Sea was a freshwater lake and the water level fluctuated through an
amplitude of 90m or more in response to the variable inflow of water from the rivers to
the north. However, the sedimentary record in different parts of the basin produces conflicting
interpretations about the pattern and timing of these changes, and the re-connection
with the Mediterranean may have been more gradual than implied by the ‘flood’ hypothesis
(Yanko-Homback et al. 2007). Overall, the loss of land locally in different areas of
Europe, even if not as sudden as claimed for the Black Sea or as extensive as the
Mesolithic inundation of the North Sea Basin, most probably had cumulative effects that
were recognized within the lifetime of individuals, and the collective memory and oral traditions
of many coastal societies likely incorporated stories recalling an earlier time of
more dramatic land loss. The marked concentration of megalithic tombs and monuments
at the coastal extremities of Britain, in the Orkneys, the Isles of Scilly, and in many other
coastal regions of Scotland, Scandinavia, and western (p. 43) Europe—some intended to
be viewed from the sea rather than from land—attests to the powerful influence of Neolithic
seascapes as an arena for day-to-day subsistence, a place of danger, a source of
myth, and perhaps the ultimate resting place of the ancestors (Westerdahl 1992, 2005;
Phillips 2004).
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Empty and Symbolic Spaces—High-Altitude Environments
and Skyscapes
Until recently it has generally been assumed that in the mountainous parts of Europe Neolithic
archaeology was restricted to valley floors and the lower slopes (Bocquet 1997).
Recent work in the French western Alps at Les Ecrins National Park and the Hauts Ubaye
Massif has shown Neolithic activity as high as 3,000m altitude (Walsh and Richer 2006;
Mocci et al. 2008; Richer 2009). High alpine grasslands or ‘meadows’ were not empty
spaces and had symbolic/ritual importance (as suggested by rock art) possibly related to
their utility for summer hunting (Richer 2009). The environment does not only comprise
climate, soil, and vegetation, but includes aspects such as skyscape and subterranean
spaces, both of which vary spatially. Monument construction is testament to a growing
human interest in, and desire to record, astronomical phenomena (Hoskin, this volume),
alongside many other cultural stimuli. Neolithic monuments aligned on astronomical
events like midsummer and midwinter sunrise include wood or stone circles and rows,
isolated megaliths, and some henges and long-barrows. These Neolithic structures appear
to be geographically restricted to northern Europe and this could at least partly relate
to variation in the seasonal skyscape, which is a function of latitude (i.e. seasonal
variations in the setting/rising positions of the sun and moon). Whilst other factors are
clearly also important, both environment and latitude must play a part in the ritualization
of the external environment. In wooded areas of moderate relief, the skyscape is only
viewable in gaps or clearings and the use of distant horizon markers implies a clear line
of sight from the viewing location (Brown 1997, 2001). This association of open, or
cleared, areas with Neolithic monumental landscapes (or ritual complexes) appears to
hold and the augmentation or manipulation of natural events may have ritual and social
importance (Evans et al. 1999; Brown 2001). Studies around Stonehenge on Salisbury
Plain, England, suggest partial clearance by the time both Stonehenge and Durrington
Walls were being built (Allen 1995). The same is true for ritual complexes on Cranborne
Chase in England (French et al. 2005; French et al. 2007) and possibly southern Brittany
(Scarre 2001). A fascinating aspect is the extent to which the ritualization of natural phenomena
may have been a formative part of tradition, as, for example, with the recent suggestion
that the banks and ditches of cursuses monumentalized the tracks of small tornadoes
through woodland (Meaden 2009). These environmental phenomena, constraints,
and opportunities need to be considered in any attempt to regionalize Neolithic traditions.
We also need to explore the possible (p. 44) effects of natural events on the perception
and ideology of later Mesolithic and Neolithic peoples (Larsson 2003) in what was
still a fundamentally natural vegetation cover until human activities became the dominant
driver in the late Bronze Age (Odgaard and Rasmussen 2000).
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Linking Environmental Change, Cultural Transformations,
and Cognition
Humans do not experience or record climate, but rather daily and seasonal weather,
along with the occurrence of extreme events. There is little doubt that early farming communities
would have been highly susceptible to extremes of weather including droughts
and floods, and the increasing trend towards food storage through the Neolithic, the
Bronze Age, and beyond is generally seen as insurance against shortages given sedentary
conditions and an increasing population (Halstead 1999; Rosen 2007). Indeed one of the
most common Neolithic features across Europe is the storage pit, often found in remarkable
numbers (Garrow 2006).
Whilst droughts and floods are the most obvious climatic hazards, others exist even in the
relatively benign environment of Mediterranean Europe. These include volcanic eruptions
in tectonically active areas, such as southern Italy, Anatolia, and the Greek Isles. Tephras
(volcanic ash layers) are known from this period (Table 2.2) and many more fine tephras
in the marine record (Lowe et al. 2007) are of high potential for improving environmental
chronologies in southern Europe. Likewise, Iceland is the source of tephras found in
mires in Scotland, northern Ireland, northern England, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia
(Barber et al. 2008; Pilcher et al. 1996; Hang et al. 2006; Boygle 1998). However, even in
the Mediterranean there is as yet little evidence for an eruption causing major population
dislocation comparable to the Bronze Age Minoan civilization or Roman Pompeii. Essential
to that narrative are perceptions of risk along with power, wealth, and opportunity, all
of which would have to be included in any model of response at the societal level and be­
low.
One approach to linking environment and human actions in the landscape is through
modelling, now common in natural sciences like geomorphology. Modelling has moved
away from normalizing, rational, and optimizing economic models towards humans as
‘agents’ endowed with behavioural attributes, even perceptions, expressed in a logical
rule-like fashion. Spatial modelling has in the past largely ignored perception, presenting
a ‘theoretical model of the culture-environment interaction that takes no account of the
cultural preconceptions and consequent constrained interpretations that social actors
bring to their physical environment before they interact with it’ (Wheatley 1996, 76). Environmental
reconstruction can include how past environments looked, felt, and even
smelled but, just as with geographical information systems (GIS), environmental (p. 45)
models should only be seen as a ‘screen on which to project behavioural and cognitive data’
(Maschner and Mithen 1996, 302) and part of a wider cognitive approach to archaeology
(Renfrew and Zubrow 1997). Parallels exist with recent developments in ecology and
geography, where agent-based modelling (ABM) models the behaviour of organisms in the
face of changing local conditions (e.g. fishing, Kirby et al. 2004) and incorporates nonnormative
and humanistic data within an environmental framework (Bithell and Macmillan
2007).
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So far, applications include modelling food acquisition (hunting, gathering, basic agriculture)
and the resultant soil erosion on limestone terrain around middle Neolithic settlements
in southern France (Wainwright 2007), modelling change in the Anasazi culture in
northern Arizona (Dean et al. 2000), and Mesolithic hunter-gatherer dynamics in the
British Isles (Lake 2000). These studies have included the integration of a digital elevation
model (DEM), palaeoenvironmental data, and—crucially—agents with rules of behaviour,
agricultural or foraging capabilities, locations, and reproduction/mortality. The crucial
point is that modelling does not seek to ‘explain’ the past or provide just another narrative,
but to explore the construction of cultural interaction by challenging existing theories,
demanding specification, and throwing up new questions. ABM is part of constructing
culture from the bottom up, rather than generalized theorizing from the top down. In
it, agents can be autonomous, goal-oriented, reactive, situated, cognitive, social, and capable
of reproducing. Consequently, emergent properties can arise (Mithen 2000), a
theme currently being explored in geomorphology and ecology (Harrison and Dunham
1999; Slaymaker 2005).
Conclusions
Many of the recent advances in environmental and Quaternary science—such as in sediment-based
dating (Brown 2011), bio-markers (e.g. Jacob et al. 2009), soil DNA (Hebsgaard
et al. 2009), and multi-element sediment scanning—greatly increase the potential
to test competing hypotheses in prehistory. This is particularly pertinent as environmental
change is commonly seen as rather less important to human society in Neolithic Europe
than during the Bronze Age, Classical, and Medieval periods. This belief is partly a
function of the longer time-scale and the dominant domestication-based narrative of Neolithic
modernity (Renfrew 2007). This is changing for many reasons, such as the awareness
of early domestication and agriculture in other regions (Bellwood 2005) and the remarkable
advances in archaeogenetics, which are driving a more contingent, episodic,
and non-purposive picture of domestication and agricultural adoption (Zohary et al.
1998). Environmental change has an essential role to play in replacing a functional metanarrative
with regionally differentiated, locally mediated, changing human–environment
relations, at least in archaeology. Cognate disciplines such as Quaternary Science, however,
appear to be developing in an opposite direction with new meta-narratives of global
scale. For instance, Ruddiman’s ‘early Anthropocene’ (p. 46) hypothesis sees the reversal
of the expected Interglacial CO and methane trend due to agriculture, particularly rice
cultivation in the tropics, effectively forestalling the geological trend towards cooler conditions
during the late Neolithic after c. 8000 BP (Ruddiman 2005). There is also a rise in
deterministic connections between climate and cultural change. As Tipping (2012) has observed,
we need to ‘stop rejecting deterministic arguments because they are unpleasant,
but instead test them, reject them, or revise them’ (cf. Coombes and Barber 2005). Both
the spatial variation in local climates and climate change must have been a component in
cultural and social change, especially in early agriculture or ‘Neolithisation’ in Europe,
but the questions are to what extent and in what ways. The answers can only come from
integrated studies of environmental proxies with high-precision archaeological chronolo­
2
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gies. This is why the re-dating of Neolithic monuments in Europe is a major advance
(Whittle and Bayliss 2007). This will lead to a better integration of social agendas with
landscape creation, a theme so actively promoted within environmental archaeology by
John Evans (Evans 1975; Allen 2009). We also need to take on board some elements of the
post-processual critique of environmental archaeology and work toward a more in-depth,
sensual, and embodied view of the external environment of Neolithic agents in the land­
scape.
Acknowledgements
The first author must thank the members of PLUS (K. Barber, P. Hughes, P. Langdon, and
J. Dearing) for commenting and assisting with drafts of this paper, and others including R.
Tipping, M. Magny, K. Walsh, S. Richer, and Joerg Schibler for help and discussion.
Thanks are also due to B. Smith for preparation of the figures.
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of Southampton (PLUS) in the University of Southampton, UK.
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Geoff Bailey
Professor Geoff Bailey is Anniversary Professor of Archaeology in the University of
York, UK.
Dave Passmore
Dr David Passmore is Senior Lecturer in Geography, Newcastle University, UK.