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Sweet Track
The Sweet Track is an ancient trackway, or causeway, in the Somerset Levels, England, named after its finder, Ray Sweet. It was built in 3807 BC (determined using dendrochronology) and is the second-oldest timber trackway discovered in the British Isles, dating to the Neolithic. It is now known that the Sweet Track was predominantly built along the course of an earlier structure, the Post Track. The track extended across the now largely drained marsh between what was then an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick, a distance close to or around . The track is one of a network that once crossed the Somerset Levels. Various artifacts and prehistoric finds, including a jadeitite ceremonial axe head, have been found in the peat bogs along its length. Construction was of crossed wooden poles, driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that consisted mainly of planks of oak, laid end-to-end. The track was used for a period of only around ten years a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shapwick Heath
Shapwick Heath is a 394.0-hectare (973.6 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and national nature reserve between Shapwick and Westhay in Somerset, notified in 1967. It is part of the Brue Valley Living Landscape conservation project. The project commenced in January 2009 and aims to restore, recreate and reconnect habitat. It aims to ensure that wildlife is enhanced and capable of sustaining itself in the face of climate change while guaranteeing farmers and other landowners can continue to use their land profitably. It is one of an increasing number of landscape scale conservation projects in the UK. Shapwick Heath, part of the Avalon Marshes in the Somerset Levels Wetlands, and managed as a national nature reserve by Natural England, is a former raised bog lying in the basin of the River Brue. The site supports a diverse community of terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates. National rarities are the Greater Silver Diving Beetle (''Hydrophilus piceus'') and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Britain
Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints probably made by ''Homo antecessor''. The oldest human fossils, around 500,000 years old, are of ''Homo heidelbergensis'' at Boxgrove in Sussex. Until this time Britain had been permanently connected to the Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald-Artois Anticline, but during the Anglian Glaciation around 425,000 years ago a megaflood broke through the ridge, and Britain became an island when sea levels rose during the following Hoxnian interglacial. Fossils of very early Neanderthals dating to around 400,000 years ago have been found at Swanscombe in Kent, and of classic Neanderthals about 225,000 years old at Pontnewydd in Wales. Britain was unoccupied by humans between 180,000 and 60,000 yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hearth
A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by at least a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial wall behind a hearth), fireplace, oven, smoke hood, or chimney. Hearths are usually composed of masonry such as brick or stone. For centuries, the hearth was such an integral part of a home, usually its central and most important feature, that the concept has been generalized to refer to a homeplace or household, as in the terms "hearth and home" and "keep the home fires burning". In the modern era, since the advent of central heating, hearths are usually less central to most people's daily life because the heating of the home is instead done by a furnace or a heating stove, and cooking is instead done with a kitchen stove/range (combination cooktop and oven) alongside other home appliances; thus many homes built in the 20t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meare Lake Village
Meare Lake Village is the site of an Iron Age settlement on the Somerset Levels at Meare, Somerset, England. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Description In prehistoric times there were two villages situated within the now-drained Meare Pool, occupied at different times between 300 BC and 100 AD, similar to the nearby Glastonbury Lake Village. Investigation of the Meare Pool indicates that it was formed by the encroachment of raised peat bogs around it, particularly during the Subatlantic climatic period (1st millennium BC), and core sampling demonstrates that it is filled with at least of detritus mud. The pool at that time was at least long by wide. The villages were built on a morass on an artificial foundation of timber filled with brushwood, bracken, rubble and clay. The two villages, east and west, within Meare Pool appear to originate from a collection of structures erected on the surface of the dried peat, such as tents, windbreaks and animal folds. There were 50 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B
''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Royal Society. The editor-in-chief is John Pickett (Cardiff University). Overview Each issue covers a specific area of the biological sciences. Each issue aims to create an original and authoritative synthesis, often bridging traditional disciplines, which showcases current developments and provides a foundation for future research, applications and policy decisions. Each issue is edited by one or more expert guest editors. The themes fall into one of four general categories: * Cell and Development * Health and Disease * Environment and Evolution * Neuroscience and Cognition All articles become freely accessible one year after their publication date. History ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' was established in 1665 by the Royal Society and is the oldest scientific journal in the English-speaking world. Henry Oldenburg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Core Sample
A core sample is a cylindrical section of (usually) a naturally-occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, such as sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube, called a core drill. The hole made for the core sample is called the "core hole". A variety of core samplers exist to sample different media under different conditions. More continue to be invented on a regular basis. In the coring process, the sample is pushed more or less intact into the tube. Removed from the tube in the laboratory, it is inspected and analyzed by different techniques and equipment depending on the type of data desired. Core samples can be taken to test the properties of manmade materials, such as concrete, ceramics, some metals and alloys, especially the softer ones. Core samples can also be taken of living things, including human beings, especially of a person's bones for microscopic examination to help diagnose diseases. Methods The compo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subatlantic
The Subatlantic is the current climatic age of the Holocene epoch. It started about 2,500 years BP and is still ongoing. Its average temperatures are slightly lower than during the preceding Subboreal and Atlantic. During its course, the temperature underwent several oscillations, which had a strong influence on fauna and flora and thus indirectly on the evolution of human civilizations. With intensifying industrialisation, human society started to stress the natural climatic cycles with increased greenhouse gas emissions. History and stratigraphy The term ''subatlantic'' was first introduced in 1889 by Rutger Sernander to differentiate it from Axel Blytt's ''atlantic''. It follows upon the previous ''subboreal''. According to Franz Firbas (1949) and Litt ''et al.'' (2001) the subatlantic consists of the pollen zones IX and X. This corresponds in the scheme of Fritz Theodor Overbeck to the pollen zones XI and XII. In climate stratigraphy the subatlantic is usually subdivide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raised Bog
Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation ( ombrotrophy) and from mineral salts introduced from the air. They thus represent a special type of bog, hydrologically, ecologically and in terms of their development history, in which the growth of peat mosses over centuries or millennia plays a decisive role. They also differ in character from blanket bogs which are much thinner and occur in wetter, cloudier climatic zones. Raised bogs are very threatened by peat cutting and pollution by mineral salts from the surrounding land (due to agriculture and industry). The last great raised bog regions are found in western Siberia and Canada. Terminology The term raised bog derives from the fact that this type of bog rises in height over time as a result of peat formation. They are like sponges o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meare Pool
Meare Pool (also known as Ferlingmere, Ferran Mere or Meare fish pool) was a lake in the Somerset Levels in South West England. Lake villages existed there in prehistoric times. During medieval times it was an important fishery, but following extensive drainage works it had disappeared from maps in the eighteenth century. Location Meare Pool was formed by water ponding-up behind the raised peat bogs between the Wedmore and the Polden Hills, and core samples have shown that it is filled with at least of detritus mud, especially in the Subatlantic climatic period (1st millennium BC). Meare Pool was located on low-lying levels just north of Meare. Its precise boundaries varied according to season, and, over the longer term, as efforts were made to drain the area. Early 16th century surveys variously describe it as being up to a mile and a half wide and having a circumference of between 2.5 and 5 miles. The south end was bordered by the high ground that the village of Meare is built ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peat Bog
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; alkaline mires are called fens. A baygall is another type of bog found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the United States.Watson, Geraldine Ellis (2000) ''Big Thicket Plant Ecology: An Introduction'', Third Edition (Temple Big Thicket Series #5). University of North Texas Press. Denton, Texas. 152 pp. Texas Parks and Wildlife. Ecological Mapping systems of Texas: West Gulf Coastal Plain Seepage Swamp and Baygall'. Retrieved 7 July 2020 They are often covered in heath or heather shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink. Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. In contrast to fens, they derive most of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay particles, but become hard, brittle and non–plastic upon drying or firing. Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide. Clay is the oldest known ceramic material. Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery. Some of the earliest pottery shards have been dated to around 14,000 BC, and clay tablets were the first known writing medium. Clay is used in many modern industrial processes, such as paper making, cement production, and chemical filtering. Between one-half and two-thirds of the world's population live or work in buildings made with clay, often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bracken
Bracken (''Pteridium'') is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family Dennstaedtiaceae. Ferns (Pteridophyta) are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produce sex cells (eggs and sperm). Brackens are noted for their large, highly divided leaves. They are found on all continents except Antarctica and in all environments except deserts, though their typical habitat is moorland. The genus probably has the widest distribution of any fern in the world. The word ''bracken'' is of Old Norse origin, related to Swedish ''bräken'' and Danish ''bregne'', both meaning fern. In the past, the genus was commonly treated as having only one species, ''Pteridium aquilinum'', but the recent trend is to subdivide it into about ten species. Like other ferns, brackens do not have seeds or fruits, but the immature fronds, known as ''fiddleheads'', are sometimes eaten, although some are thought to be carcinogenic. Description an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
