Testing the presence of cereal-type pollen grains in coastal pre-Elm Decline peat deposits: Fine-resolution palynology at Roudsea Wood, Cumbria, UK

Innes, James; Rutherford, Mairead; Ryan, Peter; Rowley-Conwy, Peter; Blackford, Jeff

Abstract

By the time of the Mid-Holocene Ulmus pollen decline (UD) ca. 5100 14C bp (ca. 5900 cal. BP), the Neolithic was becoming well established in Britain and Ireland. The importance of cereal cultivation as part of the initial neolithization process in the British Isles is uncertain, as archaeological sites of the first Neolithic remain elusive. Palaeoecologists have recorded cereal-type pollen grains in peat deposits that pre-date the UD significantly, but as some wild grasses can produce pollen that closely resembles cereal pollen grains, these early pollen records are not trusted as evidence of cereal cultivation. Some of these wild grass taxa grow in coastal wetland environments, making cereal-type pollen from such locations particularly open to question. This study uses fine-resolution palynology through a sequence of coastal hydroseral deposits that contain no evidence of human activity, to look for the presence of wild grass pollen of cereal size and morphology. Our results show that while such grains are not recorded at 1 cm resolution, at contiguous 2 mm resolution sampling sporadic occurrences of large grass pollen of possible cereal-type, resembling Hordeum, were detected. Morphology suggests that these cereal-type grains are of wild grass origin, almost certainly Glyceria, but their presence suggests that high-resolution analyses of coastal zone sediments will often discover cereal-type grains. Great care must be taken in identifying cereal-type pollen in coastal palaeo-wetland sediments, and rigorous identification protocols should be applied. Where grains could still be of cultivated cereal-type, the presence of other disturbance indicators is an important factor in inferring their origin.

Citation

Innes, J., Rutherford, M., Ryan, P., Rowley-Conwy, P., & Blackford, J. (2024). Testing the presence of cereal-type pollen grains in coastal pre-Elm Decline peat deposits: Fine-resolution palynology at Roudsea Wood, Cumbria, UK. Holocene, 34(4), 420-437. https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836231219461

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 14, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jan 19, 2024
• Publication Date: Jan 19, 2024
• Deposit Date: Mar 27, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 27, 2024
• Journal: The Holocene
• Print ISSN: 0959-6836
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-0911
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 34
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 420-437
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836231219461
• Keywords: cereal-type pollen, coastal peat, fine-resolution palynology, pre-Elm Decline
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2348847