ABSTRACT
Cultural landscape dynamics reflect changes in an agrarian society and can be studied by means of paleoecological techniques and access to archeological and historical information. Holocene climate change is suggested to be an important environmental factor behind the step-wise development of the cultural landscape in northwestern Europe. Another factor influencing changes in agrarian technology and organization has been the availability of soil nutrients. Eight distinct human impact events (3900, 3500, 2500–2200, 1800, 800 B.c.e.; 500, 800–1000, 1300–1400 C.e.) are defined and compared with the paleoclimatic situation, as reconstructed from information on solar activity, tree growth at timber line, lake catchment erosion, and other proxy data. There is evidence of wide-scale synchronicity over much of northwestern Europe, but there is also local differentiation of landscape development. It is hypothesized that the agrarian society and landscape developed in a stepwise fashion, dependent on the interaction among technology, society, and the ecological capacity of the landscape, highly influenced by climate.
