A meta-database of Holocene sediment cores for England

Suggitt, A.J.; Jones, R.T.; Caseldine, C.J.; Huntley, B.; Stewart, J.R.; Brooks, S.J.; Brown, E.; Fletcher, D.; Gillingham, P.K.; Larwood, J.; Macgregor, N.A.; Silva, B.; Thomas, Z.; Wilson, R.J.; Maclean, I.D.

doi:10.1007/s00334-015-0515-1

A meta-database of Holocene sediment cores for England

Suggitt, A.J.; Jones, R.T.; Caseldine, C.J.; Huntley, B.; Stewart, J.R.; Brooks, S.J.; Brown, E.; Fletcher, D.; Gillingham, P.K.; Larwood, J.; Macgregor, N.A.; Silva, B.; Thomas, Z.; Wilson, R.J.; Maclean, I.D.

Authors

A.J. Suggitt

R.T. Jones

C.J. Caseldine

Brian Huntley brian.huntley@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus

J.R. Stewart

S.J. Brooks

E. Brown

D. Fletcher

P.K. Gillingham

J. Larwood

N.A. Macgregor

B. Silva

Z. Thomas

R.J. Wilson

I.D. Maclean

Abstract

Extracting sediment cores for palaeoecological and archaeological investigations has occurred extensively across England since the early 20th century. Surprisingly, there has been comparatively little collation of these valuable publications and potential sources of data; for example, a search on the European Pollen Database (1st Aug 2014 edition) found just 118 core sites for the whole of Great Britain. Here, using a combination of systematic meta-searching and knowledge of the unpublished (‘grey’) literature, we have assembled a meta-database of some 763 sediment cores for palaeoecological records, documented across 273 scientific studies. The majority of these (>90 %) were sediment cores upon which pollen analyses had been performed, but other types of evidence, such as plant macrofossil and faunal records were also identified. We are making this meta-database publicly available, in the hope that it will assist further investigations into Holocene vegetation history, palaeoecology, geoarchaeology and environmental change.

Citation

Suggitt, A., Jones, R., Caseldine, C., Huntley, B., Stewart, J., Brooks, S., …Maclean, I. (2015). A meta-database of Holocene sediment cores for England. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 24(6), 743-747. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-015-0515-1

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 20, 2015
Online Publication Date	Jan 30, 2015
Publication Date	Nov 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Feb 25, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 3, 2015
Journal	Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Print ISSN	0939-6314
Electronic ISSN	1617-6278
Publisher	Springer
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	24
Issue	6
Pages	743-747
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-015-0515-1
Keywords	Pollen diagram, Radiocarbon, Palynology, Dating, Climatic change.
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1436191