ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the combined use of pollen grains and spores and of plant macrofossils to reconstruct Holocene floras, vegetation and environments, including climates. The basic approaches to climate reconstruction are outlined, and the complementary nature of pollen-analytical and plant-macrofossil data is discussed in terms of dispersal, identification, improvement of interpretation and climatic value. Some studies that have successfully combined pollen and plant-macrofossil data to enhance understanding of Holocene climate history are reviewed. They include examples from North America and Europe on tree migration and on altitudinal tree-limit changes, on latitudinal tree-limit shifts in arctic Canada and Arctic Eurasia, and on tundra and prairie history in Spitsbergen and the Great Plains region of North America. The use of plant macrofossils to provide an independent validation of a pollen-based climate reconstruction is illustrated by recent work in northern Norway.
