Through papers presented at a conference, this volume brings together the work of more than 50 experts in studying the interactions between humans and other living organisms since the last Ice Age in the Mersey basin, a region where human intervention has a long history. In the past few hundred years, such interaction and intervention has caused pollution as severe as anywhere in the world, resulting in a profoundly altered landscape. Yet the region also has wildscape, ranging from open moorland on the Pennine Hills, through woods and moors to the estuaries and Liverpool Bay, and is home to rare wildlife on at least a European scale that have found a refuge and a sanctuary. Within the Mersey basin, studies have made a great difference in understanding of the changes that took place in the prehistoric period. While our understanding of later periods is often less certain, owing to poor information or lack of study, this book contains a synthesis of current knowledge and provides a contribution to the development of the ecological study of industrial regions.
The scope of this volume is impressive. It succeeds in bringing together a wealth of information under a single theme. The Archaeological Journal Comprehensively illustrated by a series of maps, charts, graphs and tables... a potential ecological domesday book at the end of the millennium. Landscape Design