Palynology of Archaeological and Mire Sediments from Dod, Borders Region, Scotland

Pollen diagrams are presented from a radiocarbon dated valley mire peat profile which contains sediments ranging in age from the Late Devensian to the historic period, and from a buried colluvial sequence and ditch profiles associated with an adjacent archaeological monument of iron age and later periods at Dod, near Hawick, Scottish Borders Region. Percentage and concentration pollen data record the development of local vegetation communities through aquatic environments in the Late Devensian and Early Flandrian, to fen and bog environments associated with the valley mire in the mid and late Flandrian periods. Deciduous forest development was delayed, perhaps due to the site's upland location, and terrestrial vegetation was dominated by open, shrub communities into which Alnus in contrast migrated at an early date. Evidence of mesolithic age disturbance between c. 8500 B.P. and c. 7000 B.P. suggests that man may have influenced pre Elm-decline vegetation patterns. An hiatus, perhaps due to peat cutting in antiquity, has removed the earlier Flandrian III pollen record, but intense agricultural land-use in later Flandrian III achieved virtually complete deforestation of the surrounding landscape. Pollen spectra from beneath the embankment and from ditch deposits at the archaeological site suggest that land-use activity from the neolithic to the Roman iron age also had a major environmental impact.