This paper is a palaeoenvironmental investigation into prehistoric farming activity in the southern Burren, a distinctive karst landscape in western Ireland, from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age (ca 4600–10 bc). This archaeologically rich landscape has been exploited by humans since the Neolithic and both the archaeological record and published pollen records from the area attest to its importance in early prehistory, specifically from the Early Neolithic–Early Bronze Age. Pollen, macrofossil and loss-on-ignition analyses were undertaken on a sediment core extracted from Lough Inchiquin, a large lake immediately south of the Burren. Previous investigations in this region all focused on small lake basins which provided only local signals of land-use offering conflicting insights into the land-use dynamics of later prehistory. With a scarcity of known archaeological evidence for Late Bronze Age activity in this region, the current narrative has been one of decreasing importance at this time. Through the establishment of a robust chronology, this paper presents the palaeoenvironmental evidence for human activity, focused on anthropogenic indicators, in conjunction with the archaeological data, from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age, to provide a detailed account of landscape change. The new data provide a more regional signal of land-use across the wider Burren landscape than previous studies and highlight an intense period of exploitation from ca 1210–560 bc that resulted in a Late Bronze Age Landnam.

中文翻译：

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西爱尔兰南部Burren的青铜时代晚期定居和农业活动的新见解

本文是对古伦南部史前农业活动的古环境研究，该地区是中石器时代到铁器时代初期（约4600–10 bc）在爱尔兰西部独特的喀斯特地貌。）。自新石器时代以来，人类就一直在利用这种考古丰富的景观，该地区的考古记录和已发表的花粉记录都证明了其在史前早期（尤其是新石器时代早期至青铜时代）的重要性。对从Burren南部一个大湖Inchiquin湖中提取的沉积物岩心进行了花粉，大型化石和点火损失分析。该地区以前的调查都集中在小湖泊流域上，这些湖泊流域仅提供了土地使用的局部信号，对以后的史前时期的土地使用动态提供了矛盾的见解。由于该地区缺乏青铜时代晚期活动的已知考古学证据，因此目前的叙述在这一时期变得越来越重要。通过建立健全的年表，本文介绍了人类活动的古环境证据，重点是人为指标，并结合了从中石器时代到铁器时代早期的考古数据，以详细描述景观变化。与以前的研究相比，新数据提供了更广泛的布伦地区更广阔的土地利用区域信号，并强调了大约1210年至560年的紧张开发时期BC这导致了青铜时代晚期Landnam。