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T3
Mid- to Late Holocene Palaeoclimate Records from the Irish Midlands
D.S. Young 1 * and P. Stastney 1
1 School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading
Recent research investigating the coherence between Mid- to Late Holocene
palaeoclimate records has identified a paucity of well-dated, high-quality sequences for
the Irish Holocene (Swindles et al., 2013). Nine new multi-proxy records are presented
from ombrotrophic raised peatlands in Counties Galway, Roscommon, Meath, Tipperary
and Longford, each of which provides a record of hydrological change derived from plant
macrofossil and testate amoebae analysis which spans the last ca. 5000 years.
Analysis of the plant macrofossils and testate amoebae from these peatlands has
Demonstrated (in the majority of records) excellent agreement between proxies,
particularly between one-dimensional summaries of the plant macrofossil data
(hydrological indices cf. Dupont, 1986) and testate amoebae transfer function derived
depth to water table (DWT) curves. Such good agreement between proxies can be
considered indicative of peatland sequences that are highly sensitive to hydrological
changes, from which good-quality proxy-palaeoclimate data can be obtained (Barber,
2007).
These records form part of an investigation of the relationship between the Irish wetland
archaeological record, peatland hydrology and climate change. Preliminary analysis of the
plant macrofossil and testate amoebae from the nine new sites has identified several key,
apparently regional hydrological events in the sequences, at ca. (1) 4000 to 3500; (2)
3100 to 2650; (3) 2300 to 1900; (4) 1200 to 800 and (5) 400 to 200 cal. yr BP.
Significantly, three of these five events appear to coincide with periods of greater visibility
in the wetland archaeological record (those at 4000 to 3500; 3100 to 2650 and 2300 to
1900 cal. yr BP).
An on-going programme of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian age-depth modelling aims to
improve the chronological uncertainty of these records, and ultimately to contribute to the
archive of well-dated, good-quality palaeoclimate records for the Irish Holocene which can
be used to investigate the relationships between centennial-scale climate variability and
the archaeological record for the Mid- to Late Holocene.
Keywords: Holocene; climate change; peatlands; plant macrofossils; testate amoebae;
wetland archaeology
Barber, K.E. and Langdon, P.G. (2007) What drives the peat-based palaeoclimate record? A critical
test using multi-proxy climate records from northern Britain. Quaternary Science Reviews 26: 3318-
3327.
Swindles, G.T., Lawson, I.T., Matthews, I.P., Blaauw, M., Daley, T.J., Charman, D.J., Roland, T.P.,
Plunkett, G., Schettler, G., Gearey, B.R., Turner, T.E., Rea, H.A., Roe, H.M., Amesbury, M.J.,
Chambers, F.M., Holmes, J., Mitchell, F.J.G., Blackford, J., Blundell, A., Branch, N., Holmes, J.,
Langdon, P., McCarroll, J., McDermott, F., Oksanen, P.O., Pritchard, O., Stastney, O., Stefanini, B.,
Young, D., Wheeler, J., Becker, K., Armit, I. (2013) Centennial-scale climate change in Ireland during
the Holocene. Earth Science Reviews 126: 300-320.