Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) in Britain : a multi-proxy approach to determine its origins and cultural significance (original) (raw)

2019

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa has been regarded as a Roman archaeophyte in Britain since the eighteenth-century AD. This research re-examined that thesis, collecting new evidence from genetic, dendrochronological, archaeological and historical analyses, using archived specimens, published reports, peer review and novel fieldwork. The main research and original fieldwork focused on England and Wales, within a British, Irish and continental European context. Sweet chestnut landscapes were identified as ancient inclosures, ancient coppice woods, historic boundaries, historic gardens, historic deer parks and designed parklands, historic formal avenues, and more recent high forest and production coppice. Genetic analysis determined that the oldest British sweet chestnut trees/stools derived from parts of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Romania. Some of these sources were refugia during the Last Glacial Maximum for sweet chestnut and other nut-bearing trees (oak, hazel, beech). Innova...