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Footprint beds record Holocene decline in large mammal diversity on the Irish Sea coast of Britain

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 1553–1563 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Long-term monitoring along the Irish Sea coast of Britain at Formby has identified hundreds of animal and human footprints in 31 discrete sediment beds. A new programme of radiocarbon dating shows that the Formby footprints span at least 8,000 years of the Holocene Epoch from the Mesolithic period to Medieval times. In a landscape largely devoid of conventional archaeology and faunal records, we show how species data from the footprint stratigraphy document long-term change in both large mammal diversity and human behaviour. The footprint beds record shifting community structure in the native fauna through an era of profound global change. As sea levels rose rapidly in the Early Holocene, men, women and children formed part of rich Mesolithic intertidal ecosystems from ~9,000 to 6,000 cal bp, with aurochs, red deer, roe deer, wild boar, beaver, wolf and lynx. Doggerland was reclaimed by the sea in this period. In the agriculture-based societies that followed, after 5,500 cal bp human footprints dominate the Neolithic period and later beds, alongside a striking fall in large mammal species richness. Stacked footprint beds can form multimillennial records of ecosystem change with precise geographical context that cannot be retrieved from site-based fossil bone assemblages.

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Fig. 1: The changing palaeogeography of northwest Europe.
Fig. 2: Formby Point footprint beds and the wider Atlantic margin context.
Fig. 3: Stratigraphic profiles and footprint beds for the Mesolithic.
Fig. 4: Mesolithic trackways exposed at Blundell Path A in June 2016.
Fig. 5: Stratigraphic profiles and footprint beds from late Mesolithic to Medieval.
Fig. 6: Human trackways of Neolithic age.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the pioneering contributions of Gordon Roberts (1930–2016) who was the first to recognize the significance of the Formby footprints and who introduced A.B. to the sites in spring 2009 and was unfailingly generous in his encouragement of her work. We thank N. Scarle of the Cartographic Unit in the School of Environment, Education and Development at The University of Manchester for drawing the diagrams. We also thank colleagues in the Department of Geography laboratories for help with field coring, sediment analysis and the recovery of material for radiocarbon dating. The fieldwork took place when A.B. was a PhD student in the Department of Archaeology and Department of Geography at The University of Manchester supervised by C.C. and J.W. We thank N. Overton and all the students who helped with field survey campaigns. C. Gamble provided very helpful comments on an earlier draft. Funding from the UK Quaternary Research Association (14CHRONO Centre) and the Manchester Geographical Society supported the radiocarbon dating programme. We thank the National Trust for permission to undertake fieldwork along the Formby coast.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Alison Burns & Chantal Conneller

  2. Department of Geography, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Alison Burns & Jamie Woodward

  3. School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Chantal Conneller

  4. 14CHRONO Centre for Climate the Environment and Chronology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Paula Reimer

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  1. Alison Burns
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Contributions

A.B., C.C. and J.W. designed the study. A.B. compiled the Formby footprint database and identified the macrofossils for radiocarbon dating. A.B. and J.W. designed the figures and wrote the paper. P.R. carried out the radiocarbon dating. All authors contributed to data interpretation and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Alison Burns or Jamie Woodward.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Martin Bell, Silvia Gonzalez and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 New radiocarbon dates from the Formby footprint beds.

All dates were analysed in the 14CHRONO Centre for Climate, the Environment and Chronology at Queen’s University Belfast and calibrated with the IntCal20 curve24. Calibrated age ranges, rounded out to the nearest 10 years, are given at the 95.4% probability level. Dates in the blue column are used in this paper. The three-stage subdivision of the Holocene approved by the International Union of Geological Sciences is shown25. Locations are shown on Fig. 2b.

Extended Data Fig. 2 OSL and radiocarbon dates obtained from Formby in the 1990s.

Note that grid references have not been published for several of these samples. The seven radiocarbon ages have been calibrated24 so that they are compatible with the 12 new radiocarbon dates presented in this paper (Extended Data Fig. 1). Note that all the radiocarbon dates from tree roots (n = 6) are Late Holocene in age. Figure 2b shows approximate locations of these sites. Much of the earlier work at Formby was done in the 1970s, 80 s, and 90 s and there has been a good deal of erosion in this landscape since. It can be challenging even today to relate the stratigraphy in one part of the coast with another; it is especially difficult with the stratigraphic records studied by previous researchers.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Holocene stratigraphy, radiocarbon dates and footprint record at Wicks Path B.

This is the only site without human footprints. Figure 2b shows the location of this site.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Human footprint data.

Number of human individuals present in the intertidal zone at each footprint site. Data shown by human age categories estimated from footprint form and size.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Animal species data.

Number of individuals by site and context.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Holocene stratigraphy, radiocarbon dates and footprint record at Victoria Road.

Figure 2b shows the location of this site.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Exposure frequency and extent at Formby.

Visibility of the radiocarbon dated footprint beds at Formby over the study period. The highlighted entries show when these beds were exposed at their greatest extent during the seven-year study period (2010–2016).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–11, Notes 1 and 2 and Tables 1 and 2.

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Burns, A., Woodward, J., Conneller, C. et al. Footprint beds record Holocene decline in large mammal diversity on the Irish Sea coast of Britain. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 1553–1563 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01856-2

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