ACID-LOADING FROM ICELANDIC TEPHRA FALLING ON ACIDIFIED ECOSYSTEMS AS A KEY TO UNDERSTANDING ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL-STRESS IN NORTHERN AND WESTERN BRITAIN

This paper proposes that the additional acid-loading brought about by the deposition of large quantities of acid aerosols from Icelandic volcanic eruptions may be responsible for environmental stress and settlement abandonment postulated by previous authors for northern and western Britain in the late 2nd millennium BC. The mechanism is predicted to have been of significance only in those ecosystems that were already significantly acidified. The paper discusses and counters suggestions that the volcanically-induced climatic change was the principal mechanism for both an apparent abandonment of settlement over large areas of northern Scotland, and the stress experienced by oak trees growing on raised bogs in Ireland.