Abstract
As an isolated island group lying off the NW European mainland which was
uninhabited until the mid-first millennium AD, the Faroes offer a unique opportunity to study
natural processes of Holocene ecosystem development in a region where anthropogenic activity is
usually a complicating factor. In this paper new radiocarbon dates and pollen-analytical data from
the island of Sandoy, in the centre of the Faroes archipelago, are presented. Together with existing
pollen and plant macrofossil records, these data allow a reconstruction of patterns of Holocene
vegetational and edaphic change. Basal peat dates indicate that large areas of blanket mire were
established long before the first human settlement, demonstrating conclusively that human impact is
not necessary for the development of such ecosystems. The timing of the initiation of the blanket
peats varies markedly, both across the Faroes as a whole and at a landscape scale, with dates
distributed evenly over 9000 years. This suggests that, in the Faroes at least, pedogenesis was more
important than climatic change in determining the timing of the spread of blanket peat systems.
uninhabited until the mid-first millennium AD, the Faroes offer a unique opportunity to study
natural processes of Holocene ecosystem development in a region where anthropogenic activity is
usually a complicating factor. In this paper new radiocarbon dates and pollen-analytical data from
the island of Sandoy, in the centre of the Faroes archipelago, are presented. Together with existing
pollen and plant macrofossil records, these data allow a reconstruction of patterns of Holocene
vegetational and edaphic change. Basal peat dates indicate that large areas of blanket mire were
established long before the first human settlement, demonstrating conclusively that human impact is
not necessary for the development of such ecosystems. The timing of the initiation of the blanket
peats varies markedly, both across the Faroes as a whole and at a landscape scale, with dates
distributed evenly over 9000 years. This suggests that, in the Faroes at least, pedogenesis was more
important than climatic change in determining the timing of the spread of blanket peat systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 15-28 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2007 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- blanket peat
- Holocene
- Norse
- pollen
- radiocarbon
- Faroe Islands
