| 1. |
- Fredh, Daniel, et al.
(author)
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Floristic diversity in the transition from traditional to modern land-use in southern Sweden AD 1800-2008
- 2012
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In: Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0939-6314 .- 1617-6278. ; 21:6, s. 439-452
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We aim to provide a long-term ecological analysis of land-use and floristic diversity in the transition from traditional to modern land-use management in the time a.d. 1800-2008 in southern Sweden. We use the Regional Estimates of Vegetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model to quantify land-cover changes on a regional scale at 20-year intervals, based on the fossil pollen record. Floristic richness and evenness are estimated using palynological richness and the Shannon index applied to the REVEALS output, respectively. We identified a transition period of 60 years between 1880 and 1940 when the total tree cover increased and the tree composition changed from deciduous to coniferous dominance. Within the shrinking area of open land, arable land taxa expanded, while the number and coverage of herbs in the remaining grasslands decreased. The succession from open grasslands to more tree-covered habitats initially favoured palynological richness, which reached its highest values during the first 40 years of the transition period. The highest REVEALS-based evenness was recorded in the time of traditional land-use and at the beginning of the transition period, reflecting higher habitat diversity at these time intervals. Our results support a more dynamic ecosystem management that changes between traditional land-use and phases of succession (< 40 years) to promote floristic diversity. We have developed and applied a palaeoecological methodology that contributes realistic estimates to be used in ecosystem management.
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| 2. |
- Hansson, Anton, et al.
(author)
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Shoreline Displacement, Coastal Environments and Human Subsistence in the Hanö Bay Region during The Mesolithic
- 2019
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In: Quaternary. - : MDPI AG. - 2571-550X. ; 2:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Southern Scandinavia experienced significant environmental changes during the early Holocene. Shoreline displacement reconstructions and results from several zooarchaeological studies were used to describe the environmental changes and the associated human subsistence and settlement development in the Hanö Bay region of southern Sweden during the Mesolithic. GIS-based palaeogeographic reconstructions building on shoreline displacement records from eastern Skåne and western Blekinge together with a sediment sequence from an infilled coastal lake were used to describe the environmental changes during five key periods. The results show a rapid transformation of the coastal landscape during the Mesolithic. During this time, the investigated coastal settlements indicate a shift towards a more sedentary lifestyle and a subsistence focused on large-scale freshwater fishing. The development of permanent settlements coincided with an extended period of coastline stability and the development of rich coastal environments in a more closed forest vegetation. This study provides a regional synthesis of the shoreline displacement, coastal landscape dynamics and settlement development during the Mesolithic. It also demonstrates a new way of combining zooarchaeological and palaeoecological approaches, which can produce multi-faceted and highly resolved palaeoenvironmental reconstructions in a wide range of settings.
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