Valuable information both for studying ancient climate
and for dating comes from tree rings. Ancient timbers and old
trees dredged from rivers or preserved in waterlogged sedi-
ments can be sampled to examine their growth rings. Th in
rings indicate poor growing conditions, most oft en correlat-
ed with low rainfall and summer temperatures, while thick
rings appear when the growing conditions are good. Patterns
of thick and thin rings can be matched from one timber to
another, and regional sequences of growth rings can be built
up. Scientists have been able to develop over much of temper-
ate Europe tree-ring sequences that cover thousands of years.
Dates obtained from tree rings are oft en to an exact year or
even season. For example, all the timbers used in a Bronze
Age ceremonial monument on the coast of eastern England
popularly known as “Seahenge” were cut in 2049 b.c.e., prob-
ably in the spring or early summer.
Th ese are only a few of the techniques used for recon-
structing the prehistoric environment. Recently ice cores
from Greenland have provided important evidence that bears
on the environment of ancient Europe. Land snails in ancient
soils can show whether the landscape was forested or open.
Computer modeling of ancient climates has revealed poten-
tial periods of increased rainfall and winds.
THE END OF THE ICE AGE
Th e environment and geography of ancient Europe are very
much the product of the ice age, known as the Pleistocene.
Even in areas that were not covered by ice, the presence of
the ice sheets and the tundra and other periglacial conditions
t hat ex tended in f ront of t hem infl uenced almost every corner
of the continent. For example, the loess that fi lls the basins in
the hills of central Europe and covers vast parts of the Car-
pathian Basin was deposited by winds sweeping up soils on
the desolate unvegetated parts of western Europe and drop-
ping it hundreds of kilometers to the east. Even Mediterra-
nean Europe felt the presence of the ice in the form of colder
temperatures and lower sea levels.
Th e ice sheets advanced and retreated many times over
the course of the Pleistocene. Four major advances and re-
treats were punctuated by many minor ones. Although hu-
mans have inhabited parts of Europe since at least 700,000
b.c.e., this discussion traces the environmental changes
during the fi nal millennia of the Pleistocene and during the
Holocene, the period of modern conditions during which
we live today.
Around 17,000 b.c.e. the large ice sheet that had covered
northern and parts of central Europe for thousands of years
began to retreat from its maximum advance. Th e ice front
ran in a line southeast from the North Sea across Denmark
and northern Germany, reaching its southernmost point in
southwestern Poland and then northeast across Belarus and
Russia. Smaller glaciers were found in the Alps and in the
Scottish Highlands. Th e ice retreated in fi ts and spurts, leav-
ing debris and moraines in its wake across northern Europe.
Except for mountain glaciers in northern Scandinavia, the
Ax made from reindeer antler found at Earls Barton, Northampton-
shire, England, dating to about 8,500 b.c.e. and characteristic of simi-
lar items from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany; this is one
of several fi nds that links Britain to Europe at the very end of the last
ice age, when sea levels were still low and there was dry land between
Britain and Europe. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)254 climate and geography: Europe