The Use of Pollen Analysis in Archaeology

The remains of ancient plants can provide a wealth of archaeological information about a site, with many methods being available to the archaeologist engaged in extracting this data. Perhaps one of the most widely-known of these techniques, possibly because of its attractive nature, is pollen analysis - a technique developed in the early years of the twentieth century by, like so many archaeological techniques, a geologist -- the Norwegian Lennart van Post. To understand the …

…Equally important is that non-specialist archaeologists are thoroughly briefed on the significance and indeed the pitfalls of pollen data so that they can make informed syntheses and not represent the pollen data merely as an adjunct to the excavation report. It is clear that in many respects the data is capable of posing as many questions as it can answer and an informed approach is vital when considering the evidence from this source of data.