A 12000-YEAR RECORD OF ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE IN THE LOMOND HILLS, FIFE, SCOTLAND - VEGETATIONAL AND CLIMATIC VARIABILITY

The Lomond Hills of Fife, an isolated upland area rising to over 500 m , provide an opportunity to investigate the effect of altitude on vege tation and climate in an area otherwise dominated by lower-lying land. The West Lomond site contains sediments of the Devensian Late-glacial period; they reveal a well-defined sequence of Lolling-Older Dryas-Al lerod-Younger Dryas events, commencing ca. 12 190 radiocarbon years B. P. and a probable Amphi-Atlantic Oscillation between ca. 11 040 and 10 800 B.P. The Holocene record is constrained by low sediment input but does reveal a woodland presence at this altitude, dominated by Betula and Corylus. Size statistics for Betula pollen are presented and the implications of the vegetational and climatic record are discussed. Th e traditional view of a smooth progress towards more temperate conditi ons following the Younger Dryas is not supported; between 10 180 and 9 120 B.P., three cooler periods are inferred, the earliest of which may belong to a terminal phase of the Younger Dryas. Comparative pollen ' influx' data strongly suggest that Quercus, Ulmus and Alnus were not p resent locally. As a working hypothesis, it is suggested that the demi se of woodland, from ca. 5950 B.P., was a result of exposure. Pollen i ndicative of human impact was probably derived from areas of lowland a gricultural activity from ca. 5330 B.P. onwards.