| Zusammenfassung: | Pollen-analytical, archaeological, and documentary evidence is used to investigate the process of woodland clearance within a small upland area of Central Rossendale, Lancashire, from Neolithic times to the present day. There is direct evidence of massive local clearance of woodland, accompanied by soil erosion, in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and indirect evidence of further clearance in the Iron Age. However, woodland may have re-established itself subsequently over much of the study area, though restricted in the uplands by podsolization and soil erosion, and this woodland persisted until well after the Norman Conquest. The documentary evidence indicates a gradual depletion of woodland resources in the three centuries prior to A.D. 1507, and the development of a pastoral economy based on cattle. After 1507 there was a rapid increase in settlement, the development of a more mixed farming economy, and the almost total clearance of the remaining woodland.
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