The Holocene (Post-glacial)

In mainland Britain the Younger Dryas gave way to the Holocene around 10,500-9,900BP. Pre-Boreal Juniper, willow and birch vegetation dominated at the start of the Holocene when Britain was still connected to Europe, and Ireland to mainland Britain.

At the end of the Younger Dryas the climate warmed rapidly and all the environmental evidence suggest that by 9,500BP a climate comparable with today’s was reached. The scene was thus set for the recolonisation of Britain by the temperate flora that had survived in southern Europe and in sheltered areas on the Atlantic coastline. The most conspicuous, and potentially dominant, components of this vegetation were the forest trees – Scots Pine and Silver and Downy Birch at first, and then Sessile and English Oak, Wych Elm, Small-leaved Lime, Alder and other broad-leaved trees.

In previous interglacials these forest trees had probably been prevented from forming closed forest by the grazing and browsing pressure of a rich fauna of large herbivores, ranging from elephants and rhinoceros to wild cattle and horses. Grazing pressure from these and many smaller herbivores is thought to have maintained tracts of open grassland, and open forest with wide grassy clearings, naturally, as a similar (but subtropical) megafauna does today in East Africa.

This changed after the Devensian glaciation. In the second half of this glacial period human cultures had developed increasingly sophisticated hunting techniques, now thought to have been responsible for the late Old Stone Age extinctions of most of the temperate and Arctic megafauna, from about 25,000 to 8000 years ago. During the glacial periods in Europe the larger animals could have survived, if at all, only in precarious and fragmented southern refuges, in small numbers, so they were particularly easy to exterminate. As they became rarer, hunting pressure may have increased still further because they became prized as trophy species.

Changing Habitats in the Holocene

Notable Holocene Faunal Changes

Today’s Flora and Fauna

The ‘Natural’ State of Holt and Little Witley