Trees and open space in the neolithic landscape : the need for sightlines

Oliver Rackham ( Woodlands; Collins, 2006) is interesting and persuasive on neolithic woodland. He sees any concept as 'wildwood' as belonging to the mesolithic and open to interpretation.  Anything post-mesolithic in the British isles would not be classifable as wildwood.

In the neolithic 'pollen diagrams show a great expansion of non-tree pollens' - coppice and open spaces make room for more pollen bearing species.

'The 'obvious explanation' of the elm decline in the early neolithic period is Dutch Elm disease.

'Monuments such as henges and long barrows involved precise alignments and called for a distant unobstructed horizon.Wide areas of what was later to be chalk downland and heath were already open country.

An open landscape on Down Farm - looking across the cursus towards the place of the midwinter sunset

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