Climatic significance of the marginalization of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) c. 2508 BC at White Moss, south Cheshire, UK

Subfossil wood from White Moss, south Cheshire, has become the focus of pal aeoenvironmental research employing not only conventional coring, pollen an alysis, radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology on pine and oak, but also t he exhumation of in situ peat areas and dendroecology of the pine ring-widt h records. Initial dendrochronological research at the site yielded five pi ne chronologies dating from 3520 to 2462 cal. Be. These and other data indi cate three episodes of pine colonization of the mire in the period between 3643 and 1740 cal. Be. Comparison of the pollen and spore records suggest t hat pine became marginalized at the site c. 2500 cal. Be after successive e pisodes of increased wetness, and this may represent a staged response to c limatic deterioration. Two oak chronologies were dated by reference to the Belfast and to English oak master chronologies to 3228-2898 Be and 2190-189 1 BC, respectively, showing the possible co-existence of pine and oak on th e mire for part of the time. Further dendrochronological work on subfossil pine at the site resulted in a chronology (WM4) that was cross-matched with pine from elsewhere in England, and subsequently dated absolutely to 2881- 2559 Be. Detailed dendroecological information, such as fire episodes and p eriods of environmental stress indicated in the tree-ring records, have bee n assigned, precisely and accurately, to calendar years in prehistory. The detailed data show the potential for both dendroecological and wider palaeo climatic and palaeoenvironmental information that may become available from prehistoric bog-pine chronologies, which might then permit precise correla tion and comparisons of proxy-climate data between sites.