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The Little Ice Age (LIA) is a well-recognised palaeoclimatic phenomenon, although its causes, duration and severity have been matters of debate and dispute. Data from a wide range of archives have been used to infer climate variability before, during and after the LIA. Some published proxy-climate data from peatlands imply that two particularly severe episodes within the LIA may be contemporaneous between hemispheres; these echo a previous climatic downturn ca. 2800 cal BP of similar severity but lesser duration. Here, we present palaeoclimate data from the mid- to late-Holocene, reconstructed from three blanket peats in Yorkshire: Mossdale Moor, Oxenhope Moor and West Arkengarthdale. Multiproxy techniques used for palaeoclimatic reconstruction were plant macrofossil, pollen and humification analyses. Dating was provided by a radiocarbon-based chronology, aided by spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) for all sites, and 210Pb dates for one. The LIA presents as a distinct climatic event within each palaeoenvironmental record at the three sites. These indications are compared with terrestrial datasets from northwest Europe and elsewhere. A broad degree of synchronicity is evident, signifying that the LIA is one of the most pronounced downturns in global climate in the last ca. 6000 years, and arguably the most routinely recorded within the Holocene.

For degraded mires and moorlands in Europe, paleoecological data from peats reveal how and when the present landscape developed. These data widen the vision of future landscapes and legitimate a greater range of targets for nature conservation agencies.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa has been regarded as a\ud Roman archaeophyte in Britain ever since a debate in the\ud eighteenth century contested whether it was indigenous or\ud introduced. This paper re-examines its status, presenting\ud new evidence within an ‘historical ecology’ analytical\ud framework. Sweet chestnut trees and coppice stools from\ud 237 sites across England and Wales were assessed\ud using genetic, dendrochronological, palaeoenvironmental,\ud archaeological, and historical analyses. Seven types of ‘sweet\ud chestnut landscape’ were identified: ancient inclosures/\ud groves; ancient coppice woods; historic boundaries; historic\ud gardens; ancient deer parks and historic parklands;\ud historic formal avenues; and more recent high forest\ud and production coppice. Genetic analysis has indicated\ud that the sources of the oldest British sweet chestnut\ud trees and stools lie in parts of France, Spain, Portugal\ud and Italy which were refugia during the Last Glacial\ud Maximum. Tree and stool antiquity are verified for the\ud first time through clonal analysis and dendrochronology.\ud The earliest written record of sweet chestnut growing in\ud Britain found in this study was a.d. 1113, referencing\ud a boundary marker tree for Goldcliff Priory in southeast\ud Wales. Later twelfth-century records evinced localised\ud coppiced woods, nut production and ‘totemic’ plantings of individual trees in noble house and garden settings.\ud By the eighteenth century sweet chestnut was extensively\ud planted in designed parklands and avenues; and in woods,\ud mostly as ‘industrial’ coppice. Present-day ‘landscapes\ud of sweet chestnut’ are endowed with ancient trees, stubs\ud and coppice stools of great significance for cultural and\ud ecological interests.

Supplemental material, sj-doc-3-hol-10.1177_0959683621994662 for Linking Holocene East Asian monsoon variability to solar forcing and ENSO activity: Multi-proxy evidence from a peatland in Northeastern China by Nannan Li, Arash Sharifi, Frank M Chambers, Yong Ge, Nathalie Dubois, Guizai Gao, Dehui Li, Lidan Liu, Hongyan Liu, Jiangyong Wang, Honghao Niu, Meng Meng, Ying Liu, Guihua Zhang and Dongmei Jie in The Holocene

To date, the interactions between small mammals, birds and humans have not been explored in a small island environment which is under strong environmental pressure in its exposed maritime position. Skomer is a small island off the coast of south-west Wales; its present vegetation includes a range of grasses, sedges and herbaceous species, and a notable lack of trees. A shallow (460 mm) soil core spanning c.14 ka was retrieved from the South Valley on the Island. Interpretation of the lithology suggests that sediment accumulation rates are slow, and vegetation takes a long time to establish, probably due to thin soils and high rates of erosion. The vegetation inferred from the pollen record is dominated by grasses and herbs, similar to the present day, with periods of greater influence of Ericaceae. There is no evidence for woodland throughout the vegetation record preserved in the soil of the island, although 74 woodland indicator species are currently present. Woodland is likely to have been present during the early Holocene, but has been absent for at least 2800 years. Skomer Island provides an example of the persistence of woodland indicator species in the absence of woodland. The authors suggest that Pteridium provides the surrogate protection from grazing and competition from grasses to allow bluebells and other woodland indicator species to thrive. Birds, humans and small mammals have influenced the vegetation through forest clearance, and then by restricting re-growth through grazing, burrowing disturbance and an altered nutrient load from associated animal faeces.

Only two finds of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) nuts have been reported from any archaeological or environmental investigation for the pre-medieval period in Great Britain: from Castle Street, Carlisle, Cumbria (one nut pericarp fragment, in 1983); and from Great Holts Farm, Boreham, Essex (pericarp fragments from circa five nuts, in 1995). Castle Street, Carlisle was presumed Roman period and Great Holts Farm was contextually dated to the 3rd century AD, but the nut fragments were not comprehensively examined or dated. A new research study during 2014– 2017 into the origins of sweet chestnut in Great Britain recovered the original specimens from their museum archives for re-examination. Direct radiocarbonanalysis has confirmed that the Great Holts Farm nuts are of the Roman period (early–mid 3rd century AD); however, the Castle Street nut has been dated as ‘modern’. Analysis of the genetic composition of the nut pericarps was attempted, but aDNA analysis was unsuccessful. The sweet chestnuts at Great Holts Farm were found together with other exotic (Mediterranean) foods, seeming to indicate that these nuts were imported rather than grown in Great Britain and appearing to be the remains of a single feast event. The Great Holts Farm specimens are now the sole evidence for sweet chestnut nuts being found in Great Britain for the whole of the historic period up to the medieval.