Comment by ggm

I think the idea of this has been around for a while, I remember my mother saying back in the late 60s the stands of trees in some parts of britain reflected Roman occupation, which was confusing when she also said industrialisation denuded the landscape in the search for charcoal.

I like that this exploration of the landscape is using pollen from soil cores, there's deep history in the ground if you know what to look for. At university we did a core in marshland near whitby and our lecturer had us mouth-feel the grit. The layer with deep preserved reeds was remarkably different to the silt layers around it, and that was a 10-15,000 year old core sample.