TEPHRA-DATED AGRICULTURAL COLLAPSE AND RECOVERY IN IRELAND THE WAKE OF THE BLACK DEATH

In the mid-14th century AD, climatic deterioration may have initiated the processes that destroyed the habitat of the Black Rat. Movement of this animal from its home range appears linked with the epidemic of Bubonic Plague known as the Black Death. It has been estimated that between one third and one half of the population of Europe perished. Such population depletion must have affected agriculture but little id known of the years that followed the Black Death from the archaeological and documentary record. In Ireland, pollen analytical investigations of the fortunes of agriculture can be traced as there is a wealth of suitable deposits that contain an historically-dated Icelandic tephra layer from the eruption of Oraejajokull in AD 1362.

Comparison of pollen data from lowland raised bog sites shows, that in some areas, agricultural collapse was complete and may have taken up to one hundred and fifty years for a recovery. In other areas agriculture continued unabated. The work indicated that the agricultural economy of other parts of Europe must have been similarly affected, even where evidence points to major population reduction.