ABSTRACT
With the amelioration of the climate which followed the Loch Lomond Readvance and finally released the British Isles from the grip of ice sheets and glaciers, the landscape rapidly changed from a mainly open tundra to one in which trees became increasingly predominant. To begin with, this closing of the landscape was accomplished by boreal forests in which birch was the most common tree, and indeed birch had been a locally important component of the Lateglacial vegetation. However, the period of the birch forests was relatively short lived. By 10,000 BP deciduous woodland was well established in southern Britain and within a thousand years had reached the west coast of Scotland and southern and eastern Ireland. Birch remained important in these areas, but as part of a mixed woodland community in which pine, hazel, oak and elm were also important, and to which lime had been added by 7000 BP (figs 9.5, 9.6, 9.9 and 9.10). As a legacy of the melting of the ice sheets the early Postglacial landscape was at first dotted with numerous lakes, but as time passed they began to dry out and became progressively overgrown with reed swamp, peat and fen. A final stage in this process was the development of alder carr, a type of deciduous woodland typical of damp ground, and by 7000 BP alder had become the dominant tree in many parts of lowland Britain (fig. 9.10a). These changes, and accompanying changes in the fauna, presented the human population with new challenges and opportunities.
