2. the Prehistoric Period Resource Assessment (Pdf)
Chapter 2: Prehistoric Period Resource Assessment Chapter 2 Prehistoric Period Resource Assessment by John Hodgson and Mark Brennand With contributions by David Barrowclough, Tom Clare, Ron Cowell, Mark Edmonds, Helen Evans, Elisabeth Huckerby, Keith Matthews, Philip Miles, David Mullin, Michael Nevell, John Prag, Jamie Quartermaine and Nick Thorpe. PALAEOLITHIC AND MESOLITHIC juniper and willow scrub with a rich herbaceous flora. This was ultimately replaced by more open The Palaeolithic period represents a time span cover- grassland with less stable soil conditions. ing almost the last half million years (Fig 2.1). Early Environmental changes resulted in a general rise in material from the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic is sea-level as the ice cap melted, an increase in rainfall, uncommon on a national scale, and there are no and natural successions of woodland vegetation. In known sites from the North West. For a considerable the earliest phase of the Mesolithic, by c 7250 BC, the part of this time the region was inhospitable due to coastline of North West England lay at c -20m OD glaciation, although the warmer, interglacial and (Tooley 1974, 33). This produced a coastline drawn interstadial periods would have undoubtedly seen roughly along a line from just west of Anglesey to gatherers and hunters exploiting the area that now west of Walney Island in Morecambe Bay, forming a forms the region. The Late Upper Palaeolithic (c belt of now submerged land, more than 20 km wide 11,000 to 8000 BC) represents the final stages of the (Tooley 1985, Fig. 6.1). By c 5200 BC the sea level Devensian glaciation.
[Show full text]