Lateglacial palaeoenvironmental investigations at Wester Cartmore Farm, Fife and their significance for patterns of vegetation and climate change in east-central Scotland

An infilled hollow at Wester Cartmore in Fife has yielded 2.30 m of deposits which have been analysed palynologically and sedimentologically. The construction of an age-depth model is compromised by radiocarbon dating problems, but the high resolution record permits an assessment of the site within the palaeovegetational context of east-central Scotland. It has been possible to refer the deposits to the Devensian Lateglacial (cf. GS-2 to GS-1) and early Holocene periods, albeit with caution given the confusion surrounding the stratigraphical and chronological terminology for the period. A number of revertence phases are recognisable in the pollen record and these fit test criteria for robustness as well as being detectable in ordination, rarefaction and, partly, preservation analyses. For east-central Scotland, apart from the ubiquitous Poaceae and Cyperaceae pollen, Juniperus is especially typical of warmer interludes, whereas Salix and Artemisia characterise the GS-1 (cf. Younger Dryas) event.