Guest speaker Terry O’Connor (University of York)
Abstract: For many years, archaeologists and other Quaternary scientists have made use of stratified assemblages of land and freshwater molluscs as proxy evidence of past environments. The environmental requirements of some species are quite well known from modern studies, allowing us to make inferences about degrees of vegetation cover and disturbance in the past. Much of this research has derived from the work of just a few people: Kennard, Kerney, Evans and Preece in particular. With the recent publication of only the second book wholly devoted to the study of ancient non-marine molluscs, this is an appropriate time to take stock. Has this field of research really moved on since Kennard’s pioneering studies in the 1920s, when it was enough to list the species found together in an ancient sediment and to discuss where they would be found today? How reliable are our identifications of ancient molluscs? We have only the shells, with no means of checking identifications through dissection of soft parts. And what contribution can these Quaternary studies make to present-day mollusc research and conservation? Is it useful, for example, to be able to add the dimension of time to familiar distribution maps, and can collectors’ records of species associations in particular habitats help us to refine our understanding of past environments.
Ron Boyce