Application of modern pollen/land-use relationships to the interpretation of pollen diagrams—reconstructions of land-use history in south Sweden, 3000-0 BP

A modern pollen/land-use data set of 124 surface samples (moss polsters) from different vegetation and land-use types in south Sweden is presented. The samples are from non-fertilized grazed areas, burned and grazed heaths, traditionally managed fodder-producing meadows and cultivated fields, and deciduous forests. Twenty nine environmental (e.g. management type, soil chemistry) variables are available for the 124 samples. Patterns of modern local pollen variation in relation to these environmental variables are explored by canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and tested by associated statistical procedures. The modern data-set is used to aid interpretation of extra-local pollen sequences from two small lakes and one mire in south Sweden, using CCA as a means of comparing modern and fossil spectra. The resulting land-use reconstructions are compared to earlier interpretations of the same pollen- stratigraphical data using the more traditional “indicator-species” approach. Emphasis is placed on the history of mowing and grazing in south Sweden as an example of the potential uses of the comparative approach for interpretating fossil pollen data in terms of past land-use.