Humans and Landscape

Abstract

Human activity had a significant impact on the landscape of Wales during the Iron Age and into the Romano-British period which is reflected in the palaeoenvironmental record. The effect on woodland is demonstrated in the pollen record which indicates clearance and regeneration episodes but an overall trend towards an increasingly agricultural landscape. Detailed information about crop and animal husbandry is provided by plant macrofossil and animal bone evidence which is more widely available in some areas than others. Wild resources continued to be exploited. Perception of and response to the 'natural' landscape, and to what it offered, by human communities may have been very different to that of today.

Keywords

• archaeology
• pollen
• plant macrofossils
• animal bones
• woodland clearance
• agriculture
• wild resources