The Holocene spans the 11,500 years since the end of the last Ice Age and has been a period of major global environmental change. However the rate of change has accelerated during the last hundred years, due largely to human impacts and this has led to a growing concern for the future of our environmental resources. Global Change in the Holocene demonstrates how reconstructing the record of past environmental change can provide us with essential knowledge about how our environment works and presents the reader with an informed viewpoint from which to project realistic future scenarios. The book brings together key techniques that are widely used in Holocene research, such as radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology and sediment analysis and offers a comprehensive analysis of various archives of environmental change including instrumental and documentary records, corals, lake sediments, glaciers and ice cores. This reference will be an informative and cutting-edge resource for all researchers in the fields of climate change, environmental science, geography, palaeoecology and archaeology.

Frank Oldfield Introduction: the Holocene, a special time R.S. Bradley Climate forcing during the Holocene P.J. Valdes Holocene climate modelling S. Shennan Holocene climate and human populations: an archaeological approach H.E. Wright & J. Thorpe Climatic change and the origin of agriculture in the Near East J.R. Pilcher Radiocarbon dating and environmental radiocarbon studies M.G.L. Baillie & D.M. Brown Dendrochronology and the reconstruction of fine resolution environmental change in the Holocene B. Zolitschka Dating based on freshwater and marine laminated sediments H.J.B. Birks Quantitative palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from Holocene biological data M.J. Leng Stable isotopes in lakes and lake sediment archives P.D. Jones & R. Thompson Instrumental Records Peter Brimblecombe Documentary records Keith Briffa & Ed Cooke? Dendroclimatology? Julie Cole Holocene coral records: windows in tropical climate variability M. Maslin, J. Pike, C. Stickley & V. Ettwein Evidence of Holocene climate variability in marine sediments KE. Barber & D.J. Charman Holocene palaeoclimate records from peatlands S.C. Fritz Lacustrine perspectives on Holocene climate S.-E. Lauritzen Speleothems A. Nesje & S. O. Dahl Glaciers as indicators of Holocene climate change D.A. Fisher & R.M. Koerner Holocene ice core climate history: a multi-variable approach Anson Mackay, Viv Jones & Rick Battarbee Reconstructing Holocene climate variability using diatom analysis J.A. Holmes & D.R. Engstrom Non-marine ostracod records of Holocene environmental change S.J. Brooks Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) H.H. Birks & H.J.B. Birks Reconstructing Holocene climates from pollen and plant macrofossils A. Rosell-Melé Biomarkers as proxies of climate change A.F. Lotter Multi-proxy climatic reconstructions M. Bush Holocene climates of the lowland tropical forests L. Scott The Holocene of middle latitude arid areas M. Claussen Simulation of Holocene climate change using climate-system models I.D. Goodwin Unravelling climatic influences on late Holocene sea level variability