Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1998, Page 288

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LATE HOLOCENEINSECT FAUNAS FROM MYKINES, FAROE ISLANDS, WITH
OBSERVATIONS ON ASSOCIATED POLLEN AND EARLY SETTLEMENT RECORDS
Taxon
Carabidae
Nebria rufescens (Strom.) 2
N salina Fair. & Lab. 1
Trechus obtusus Er. 3
Olisthopus rotundatus (Payk.) I
Hydrophilidae
Megasternum boletophagum (Marsh.) 3
Staphylinidae
Olophrum fuscum (Grav.) 1
Quedius curtipennis Bernh. 1
Aleocharinae gen. indet. 1
Curculionidae
Otiorhynchus arcticus (F.) 1

Table 3: Modern Coleoptera collected in the Lambi
puffineries August, 1986, Mykines, Faroes.
Talva 3. Nútíðar Coleoptera savnað í lundalandinum í
Lamba í Mykinesi august 1986.
that no resistant spores were found (or re-
ported), and equally surprising that the
ubiquitous pollen of Cyperaceae (sedges)
would also seem to be absent; neither were
spores displayed in the Uldalíð diagram,
though Cyperaceae reached 80% at one
level. It may be the case that Jóhansen de-
cided not to present all of the data. The use
of Plantago maritima as a ‘zone’ fossil
seems fairly reasonable given the proximi-
ty of the sites, the small size of the island
and the fact that Jóhansen counted thou-
sands of pollen grains, at Lambi at least and
below sample 14, and did not find further
grains of sea plantain.
The cereal-type pollen grains from Lam-
bi are rightfully accorded extended exami-
nation. In view of their crumpled and cor-
roded state, Jóhansen is only able to mea-
sure annulus diameters of 50 grains from 9
sample levels. He noted that many grains
were, however, in the requisite cereal-size
range of 38-50 pm diameter (Andersen,
1979). From such data he concludes that
basal assemblages with wild grasses gave
way to those with first oat and then barley
pollen. Unfortunately, the annulus diameter
size ranges for cultivated species of Avena
and Hordeum overlap, though Jóhansen
was able to support his diagnoses with
some observations of surface sculpturing. It
is a pity that corrosion prevented a wider
application of this check. The existence of
cereal-type pollen clumps is an important
observation. Cereals are cleistogamous
with large pollen grains which travel short
distances. It would not be unexpected to
find their pollen grains falling as unseparat-
ed clumps from the anthers of standing
crops.
A re-calibration (Calib v.3.0.3, Stuiver
and Reimer, 1993) of the radiocarbon date
for the relevant horizon (83 cm at Uldalíð)
for the start of the Plantago maritima curve
at Uldalíð would produce an interpolated
and estimated date of AD 660. This, of
course, is a ‘central’ date to which an error
term applies. On the basis of the dates
which provided the estimate (AD 410-660
and AD 660-980, at the 2 sigma level and
rounded to the nearest ten years), the range
for the AD 660 estimate might be expected
to cover the period ca. AD 510-810. Given
that the dates from Lambi are demonstrably
unreliable, and that the profile from Uldalíð
would appear to have been subject to both
puffin burrowing and mass movement, then
the dates form this site also must be regard-
ed as suspect.