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The use of historical analogues for interpreting fossil pollen records

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Abstract

Modern vegetational analogues of palaeo-landscapes, which could be useful for interpreting fossil pollen assemblages, are often not available, because increased human impact all over the world has altered the vegetation, and the way in which vegetation is recorded by pollen assemblages, including changes in species composition, pollen production, dispersal and sedimentation. Historical maps, survey records and other sources may, however, provide vegetation data for periods prior to this increased human impact, and these may be compared with pollen assemblages from the same period to provide historical analogue data sets. In this paper we review the use of historical analogues in pollen analysis to describe past vegetation patterns in relation to soil properties, climate and fire regimes, and to reconstruct past land use changes, forest composition and species range limits. The methods used include qualitative interpretations, analogue matching, ordination techniques and regression. Because the historical data sources were originally created for other purposes, they may lack the precision or detail needed for quantitative analysis.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Danish Research Training Council and by the Research Council initiative “The Agrarian Landscape in Denmark” (grant no. 9800594). Shinya Sugita is gratefully acknowledged for putting the unpublished program RS-OPEN at our disposal. The manuscript was improved through the comments of H. Joosten and M.-J. Gaillard. This is publication no. 5 of the project “AGRAR 2000. Danish agrarian landscapes from the Birth of Christ to the year 2000” (http://www1.natmus.dk/agrar2000/). It is also a contribution to the NORFA funded network POLLANDCAL (http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/ecrc/pollandcal/).

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  1. Department of Quaternary Geology, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, GEUS, Øster Voldgade 10, 1350 , Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anne Birgitte Nielsen

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Aarhus, C.F. Møllers Allé, Building 120, 8000 , Aarhus, Denmark

    Bent Vad Odgaard

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  1. Anne Birgitte Nielsen
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Correspondence to Anne Birgitte Nielsen.

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Nielsen, A.B., Odgaard, B.V. The use of historical analogues for interpreting fossil pollen records. Veget Hist Archaeobot 13, 33–43 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-003-0024-5

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