The Bronze Age climate and environment of Britain

Abstract

Over the last twenty years there have been tremendous advances in our knowledge of climate change in later British prehistory from a wide variety of proxy-climate sources. This chapter will summarise our present understanding for the period 2000-500 BC and highlight the areas in which further research is required. A secondary aim is to review how much we can infer from these proxy-climate records concerning the wider environment, including the day-today environment of Bronze Age peoples and the stresses imposed upon their societies. This area is far more subjective but lies at the heart of serious, i.e. non-superficial, attempts to relate aspects of change in Bronze Age society to environmental change.