Studies of the post-glacial history of British vegetation I. Origin and stratigraphy of Fenland deposits near Wooldwalton, Hunts II. Origin and stratigraphy of deposits in southern Fenland

Abstract

The fenland basin of East Anglia is a shallow depression centred round the Wash and filled with extensive post-glacial deposits of peat or of estuarine silt and clay. The alternation of these deposits, and changes in their character, are the record of a complex history of climatic alteration, marine transgression and regression, and of vegetational evolution. The Fenland Research Committee, founded in 1932, has for its object the elucidation of this history, which is of importance not only intrinsically, but in relation also to the post-glacial history of the adjoining margin of western Europe, to the history of human settlement in Britain, and to the theory of peat stratigraphy and vegetational history in this country. Results of intensive investigations at fenland sites of particular archaeological interest have already been published: they represent the correlated research of specialists in several sciences. The first paper dealing principally with peat stratigraphy and vegetational history was that of the present authors on the deposits at Wood Fen, near Ely (H. and M. E. Godwin and M. H. Clifford 1935). They now report the results of more extensive observations of similar character in another portion of the fenland basin where the deposits have a wider range of character and of age.