![]() ![]() In Orkney, the Neolithic archaeology includes domestic and monumental stone-built structures forming a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the pre-Neolithic landscape was largely treeless. In Somerset, wet-preserved Neolithic remains such as trackways are abundant, but little dry land settlement archaeology is known, and the pre-Neolithic landscape was extensively wooded. Both landscapes contain significant evidence of Neolithic activity, but present contrasting contexts. We apply this approach to two case studies of Neolithisation in Britain, the first from the Somerset Levels and Moors and the second from Mainland, Orkney. Goodness of fit statistics from multiple pollen site locations are used to identify which scenarios are likely reconstructions of past land cover. It has two components: a basic Geographic Information System which takes grids of landscape constraints (e.g., topography, geology) and generates possible “scenarios” of past land cover using a combination of probabilistic and deterministic placement rules to distribute defined plant communities within the landscape, and a pollen dispersal and deposition model which simulates pollen loading at specified points within each scenario and compares that statistically with actual pollen assemblages from the same location. In this paper, we present LandPolFlow, a software package enabling Multiple Scenario Approach (MSA) based land cover reconstruction from pollen records for specific landscapes. Pollen records contain a wide range of information about past land cover, but translation from the pollen diagram to other formats remains a challenge. 6Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, University of Cardiff, Cardiff, United Kingdom.5Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom.4Historic England, London, United Kingdom.3Centre for Research in the Built and Natural Environment, Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom.2School of Energy, Construction and Environment, Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom.1Geography, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom.Jane Bunting 1 *, Michelle Farrell 2,3, Alex Bayliss 4,5, Peter Marshall 4 and Alasdair Whittle 6 ![]()
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