Gill Plunkett

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Queen's University Belfast | QUB · Archaeology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural and Built Environment

Ancient texts and archaeological evidence indicate substantial lead exposure during antiquity that potentially impacted human health. Although lead exposure routes were many and included the use of glazed tablewares, paints, cosmetics, and even intentional ingestion, the most significant for the nonelite, rural majority of the population may have b...

The word “tephra” is an all-encompassing term for the explosively erupted, pyroclastic (fragmental) products of a volcanic eruption. Since the early pioneering work of Thorarinsson and others, the value of tephras in providing time-parallel marker horizons or isochrons is now well understood. Tephras are routinely detected and identified in both vi...

Polar ice cores and historical records evidence a large-magnitude volcanic eruption in 1831 CE. This event was estimated to have injected ~13 Tg of sulfur (S) into the stratosphere which produced various atmospheric optical phenomena and led to Northern Hemisphere climate cooling of ~1 °C. The source of this volcanic event remains enigmatic, though...

Longer‐term perspectives—equivalent to the lifespans of long‐lived trees—are required to fully inform perceptions of ‘naturalness’ used in woodland conservation and management. Stand‐scale dynamics of an old growth temperate woodland are reconstructed using palaeoecological data. The study site is Cambusurich Wood, Scotland, a woodland designated f...

Tephrochronology Chapter (Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, 3rd edition). This chapter will be amalgamated with other chapters in due course and formally published as a multi-volume Encyclopedia set around September, 2024. As this chapter is bound by Elsevier copyright and cannot at this stage be posted publicly for download - I would be delighte...

The Eldgjá eruption is the largest basalt lava flood of the Common Era. It has been linked to a major ice‐core sulfur (S) spike in 939–940 CE and Northern Hemisphere summer cooling in 940 CE. Despite its magnitude and potential climate impacts, uncertainties remain concerning the eruption timeline, atmospheric dispersal of emitted volatiles, and co...

Existing global volcanic radiative aerosol forcing estimates portray the period 700 to 1000 as volcanically quiescent, void of major volcanic eruptions. However, this disagrees with proximal Icelandic geological records and regional Greenland ice-core records of sulfate. Here, we use cryptotephra analyses, high-resolution sulfur isotope analyses, a...

Reconstruction of hydrological fluctuations in arid regions has proven challenging due to a lack of reliable chronologic constraints on sparse geological archives. The aim of this study was to establish an independent record of hydrologic changes in the hyper-arid Tarim Basin (TB; northwest China) with high spatiotemporal resolution. We present com...

Polar ice cores provide long, continuous and well-dated records of past volcanism and have contributed significantly to our understanding of volcanic impacts on climate and society. Sulphate aerosols deposited in the ice are essential for determining the effective radiative forcing potential of past eruptions, but calculations are improved with kno...

Tephra is a unique volcanic product with an unparalleled role in understanding past eruptions, long-term behavior of volcanoes, and the effects of volcanism on climate and the environment. Tephra deposits also provide spatially widespread, high-resolution time-stratigraphic markers across a range of sedimentary settings and thus are used in numerou...

The 852/3 CE eruption of Mount Churchill, Alaska, was one of the largest first-millennium volcanic events, with a magnitude of 6.7 (VEI 6) and a tephra volume of 39.4–61.9 km3 (95 % confidence). The spatial extent of the ash fallout from this event is considerable and the cryptotephra (White River Ash east; WRAe) extends as far as Finland and Polan...

Evaluating the impact of environmental changes on past societies is frequently confounded by the difficulty of establishing cause-and-effect at relevant scales of analysis. Commonly, paleoenvironmental records lack the temporal and spatial resolution to link them with historic events, yet there remains a tendency to correlate climate change and cul...

Tephra layers from explosive eruptions can provide valuable isochronous marker horizons for paleoenvironmental studies across large regions. East Asia and Southeast Asia are host to more than half of the Earth's subaerial volcanoes, and tephras from these volcanoes offer significant numbers of widely distributed marker layers. However, the integrat...

Volcanic fallout in polar ice sheets provides important opportunities to date and correlate ice-core records as well as to investigate the environmental impacts of eruptions. Only the geochemical characterization of volcanic ash (tephra) embedded in the ice strata can confirm the source of the eruption, however, and is a requisite if historical eru...

The 852/3 CE eruption of Mount Churchill, Alaska, was one of the largest first millennium volcanic events, with a magnitude of 6.7 (VEI 6) and a tephra volume of 39.4–61.9 km3 (95 % confidence). The spatial extent of the ash fallout from this event is considerable and the cryptotephra (White River Ash east; WRAe) extends as far as Finland and Polan...

Lakes and bogs in northeastern North America preserve tephra deposits sourced from multiple volcanic systems in the Northern Hemisphere. However, most studies of these deposits focus on specific Holocene intervals and the latest Pleistocene, providing snapshots rather than a full picture. We combine new data with previous work, supplemented by a br...

New Zealand was among the last habitable places on earth to be colonized by humans¹. Charcoal records indicate that wildfires were rare prior to colonization and widespread following the 13th- to 14th-century Māori settlement², but the precise timing and magnitude of associated biomass-burning emissions are unknown1,3, as are effects on light-absor...

Far-travelled ash layers from explosive volcanic eruptions can provide invaluable marker horizons for dating and correlating regional to global sedimentary archives. Here, we present a new cryptotephra associated with the ~5.9 cal ka BP Towada Chuseri eruption (To-Cu) in a peat sediment record from northeast China. This tephra exhibits a rhyolitic...

Volcanic signatures archived in polar ice sheets provide important opportunities to date and correlate ice-core records as well as to investigate the environmental impacts of eruptions. Only the geochemical characterization of volcanic ash (tephra) embedded in the ice strata can confirm the source of the eruption, however, and is a requisite if his...

Large regions of Earth's surface are underlain by salt deposits that evaporated from ancient oceans and are populated by extreme halophilic microbes. Some of these halophiles may have been preserved over geological timescales within hypersaline fluid inclusions, but ingresses of water and/or anthropogenic activities can lead to the formation of alt...

Volcanic eruptions are a key source of climatic variability, and reconstructing their past impact can improve our understanding of the operation of the climate system and increase the accuracy of future climate projections. Two annually resolved and independently dated palaeoarchives – tree rings and polar ice cores – can be used in tandem to asses...

Volcanic ash has been widely used as unique independent marker horizons for dating and synchronizing paleoenvironments and archeological records. Here, we report a series of key widespread late Pleistocene to Holocene tephras horizons from a lake sequence in southern China that have significant potential for dating and synchronizing paleoenvironmen...

Some recent significant work has been carried out using ‘big data’ to analyse chronological trends within prehistoric Ireland, but these analyses are sometimes lacking in archaeological context. This paper hopes to bridge that gap by providing a chronological framework based on the settlement data from Bronze Age Ireland. It updates previous resear...

Excavations at the extension to the Abbey Lane Theatre in the centre of Armagh city in 2010 uncovered a series of early medieval pits and gullies revealing episodes of occupation and industry dating from perhaps as early as the 6th century to the 10th or 11th century AD.

Significance The Tierra Blanca Joven eruption of Ilopango occurred during Maya times but the exact timing and its impact have been controversial. It was thought to be responsible for the anomalously cold decade experienced in the Northern Hemisphere centered at 540 CE, but this date is at odds with archeological evidence that suggests a date near t...

Volcanic eruptions are a key source of climatic variability and reconstructing their past impact can improve our understanding of the operation of the climate system and increase the accuracy of future climate projections. Two annually resolved and independently dated palaeoarchives – tree rings and polar ice cores – can be used in tandem to assess...

Significance The first century BCE fall of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom and subsequent rise of the Roman Empire were among the most important political transitions in the history of Western civilization. Volcanic fallout in well-dated Arctic ice core records, climate proxies, and Earth system modeling show that this transition occurred...

Volcanic ash (fine-grained tephra) within Greenland ice cores can complement the understanding of past volcanism and its environmental and societal impacts. The presence of ash in sparse concentrations in the ice raises questions about whether such material represents primary ashfall in Greenland or resuspended (remobilized) material from continent...

In Europe, mountain landscapes have evolved in a long‐term relationship with human communities and present‐day landscapes reflect that ancient interaction. The present study aims to reconstruct human activity in two mountain areas in northern Portugal using palynological analysis integrated with the available regional historical, archaeological and...

There is a frequent, if often implicit, tendency to assume that cultural transitions of past societies were environmentally-driven and that climatic deteriorations, through their detrimental effects on the environment and subsistence economy, were the main agents of cultural decline . This environmentally-deterministic theory is often considered ov...

When considering past human–environment relationships in Ireland, we rarely contemplate the potentially detrimental effects of drought on populations. The summer of 2018 drew attention, however, to some of the ways in which reduced precipitation can impact on societies, even in an oceanic setting such as Ireland. Here, we examine ways in which we c...

To what extent did climate change steer the trajectories of early societies? The final prehistoric (Developed to Late Iron Age) and early medieval periods in Ireland witnessed several major transformations in settlement, economy, material culture and ideology. Here, we review the palaeoenvironmental records to contextualise these transformations in...

Upland landscapes were challenging environments for the settlement and subsistence of past communities because of their elevation and environmental sensitivity. These challenges have, however, contributed to the preservation of abundant archaeological remains, many of which are now wholly or partially covered by blanket peat. In this paper we repor...

The dendrochronological potential of short-lived species has had varying degrees of success in the past. Where there has been a level of success with short sequenced assemblages, the focus has been on visual comparisons, based on the occurrence of signature rings. Of vital importance to alder's ability to be cross-correlated is that it produces a s...

Climate warming and human impacts are thought to be causing peatlands to dry, potentially converting them from sinks to sources of carbon. However, it is unclear whether the hydrological status of peatlands has moved beyond their natural envelope. Here we show that European peatlands have undergone substantial, widespread drying during the last ~30...

Prehistoric Holocene eruptions of Changbaishan volcano in Northeast China are poorly dated, with the exception of the AD 946 Millennium eruption (ME). Poorly refined age estimates for the earlier eruptions present problems for the reconstruction of the eruptive history of the volcano. The Qixiangzhan eruption (QE) is a major controversial event in...

Plants and animals influence biomass production and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems; however, their relative importance remains unclear. We assessed the extent to which mega‐herbivore species controlled plant community composition and nutrient cycling, relative to other factors during and after the Late Quaternary extinction event in Bri...

Far-travelled volcanic ash (fine-grained tephra) clouds pose economic and societal risks largely through their potential impact on the aviation industry. A long view of ash clouds extending over northwest Europe assembled from the study and geochemical characterisation of cryptotephra (i.e. tephra invisible to the naked eye) in sedimentary records...

The response of large water-bodies to global change in terms of ecosystem services and economical value is a major concern. The Caspian Sea, the world’s largest enclosed water-body, has a poorly-known water-level history, but observed changes are a hundred times faster than recent global sea-level rise. This ancient lake, characterised by brackish...

Locating and geochemically characterising cryptotephra in polar ice cores is critical for identifying the sources of volcanic markers that the ice cores contain. Trace element analysis of tephras is an important compliment to major element analysis as trace element composition can help differentiate volcanic sources and provide insights into the pr...

Investigations of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on climate, environment, and society require accurate chronologies. However, eruptions that are not recorded in historical documents can seldom be dated exactly. Here we use annually resolved radiocarbon ($^{14}$C) measurements to isolate the 775 CE cosmogenic $^{14}$C peak in a subfossil bir...

Investigations of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on climate, environment, and society require accurate chronologies. However, eruptions that are not recorded in historical documents can seldom be dated exactly. Here we use annually resolved radiocarbon (14C) measurements to isolate the 775 CE cosmogenic 14C peak in a subfossil birch tree th...

Holocene cryptotephras of Alaskan and Pacific Northwestern origin have recently been detected ca. 7000 km away on the east coast of North America. This study extends the emerging North American tephrochronological framework by geochemically characterising seventeen cryptotephra layers from four newly explored peatlands. All detected tephras were de...

We discuss the timing of volcanic eruptions and quantify atmospheric sulfate loading using an array of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. We demonstrate that throughout the Common Era volcanic activity was the main driver for abrupt summer cooling in Europe.

The Greenland Ice Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05) and the radiocarbon calibration curve (IntCal) are the foremost time scales used in paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental studies of the most recent 10 k.y. Due to varying and often insufficient dating resolution, opportunities to test the synchrony of these two influential chronologies are rare. Here...

Volcanic eruptions contribute to climate variability, but quantifying these contributions has been limited by inconsistencies in the timing of atmospheric volcanic aerosol loading determined from ice cores and subsequent cooling from climate proxies such as tree rings. Here we resolve these inconsistencies and show that large eruptions in the tropi...

Workshop

Significance The impact of rapid climate change on humans is of contemporary global interest. Present-day debates are necessarily informed by paleoclimate studies in which climate is often assumed, without sufficient critical attention, to be the primary driver of societal change. Using new methods to analyze paleoclimatic and archeological dataset...

Volcanic ash layers preserved within the geologic record represent precise time markers that correlate disparate depositional environments and enable the investigation of synchro- nous and/or asynchronous behaviors in Earth system and archaeological sciences. However, it is generally assumed that only exceptionally powerful events, such as supereru...

A recently exposed inter-tidal peat bed at Ballywoolen, Bann estuary, Co. Londonderry, has yielded new information about mid-Holocene coastal environmental change in the north-east of Ireland. Pollen analytical data and wood detritus demonstrate that peat accumulation occurred in a terrestrial environment that was free from marine influence. Radioc...

Major volcanic eruptions can impact on global climate by injecting large quantities of aerosols and ash into the atmosphere that alter the radiative balance and chemical equilibrium of the stratosphere. The Millennium eruption of Tianchi (Paektu), China/North Korea, was one of the largest Late Holocene eruptions. Uncertainty about the precise timin...

We examine mid- to late Holocene centennial-scale climate variability in Ireland using proxy data from peatlands, lakes and a speleothem. A high degree of between-record variability is apparent in the proxy data and significant chronological uncertainties are present. However, tephra layers provide a robust tool for correlation and improve the chro...

Remains of past human activity in Northern Ireland’s Bronze Age, Iron Age, Medieval, and Early Modern eras are normally invisible under continuous pasture cover. By combining scientific indicators, archaeological methods, and historical documents, we suggest new ways of understanding “invisible” change throughout this period. Political activity at...

Climate change, whether gradual or sudden, has frequently been invoked as a causal factor to explain many aspects of cultural change during the prehistoric and early historic periods. Critiquing such theories has often proven difficult, not least because of the imprecise dating of many aspects of the palaeoclimate or archaeological records and the...

Acidity peaks in Greenland ice cores have been used as critical reference horizons for synchronizing ice-core records, aiding the construction of a single Greenland Ice Core Chronology (GICC05) for the Holocene. Guided by GICC05, we examined sub-sections of three Greenland cores in the search for tephra from specific eruptions that might facilitate...

We present distribution maps for all cryptotephras (distal volcanic ash layers) younger than 7 ka that have been reported from three or more lakes or peatlands in north-west Europe. All but one of the tephras originates from Iceland; the exception has been attributed to Jan Mayen. We find strong spatial patterning in tephra occurrence at the landsc...