ABSTRACT
There are few better careers than Quaternary palynology for the determined overinterpreter, the chronic circular arguer or the athletic bandwagon-jumper. This is because pollen diagrams have proved exceedingly difficult to interpret. The recognition in them of evidence for human activity, and the distinguishing of that evidence from the evidence for climatic and other natural changes, are the apotheosis of that difficulty. Even in those regions of the temperate zone where the pollen data are abundant and relatively well understood (Europe and North America), there has been nofinal resolution of this problem. For example, although there is general acceptance in Britain of the idea of progressive modification and elimination of lowland forest by people since 5000 BP, there is disagreement on the importance of human activity in upland areas (Flenley 1984). The forest there certainly disappeared, to be replaced by heather-dominated moorlands and blanket bogs, but there is argument as to whether this was the result of human-induced burning (Moore 1973) or leaching of soils by increased rainfall, leading to podzolization and peat formation (Godwin 1956). Possibly the truth is somewhere between the two extreme views. The forest was probably already in disequilibrium with its environment as a result of soil leaching in the early Holocene. Its ability to regenerate after burning was thereby impaired, so that human impact was easily able to administer the coup de grace (Pennington 1965).
