Ancient Europe Was a Patchwork of Open Land, Study Finds

According to ScienceDaily, researchers led by Aarhus University in Denmark have found that Europe’s ancient landscapes looked very different from the dark, dense forests many people picture today. Much of the continent was instead a mix of scattered trees, open woodland, grassy clearings and meadows full of wildflowers. The findings were published in the journal Biological Conservation.

The team says this blend of habitats dominated Europe for more than 20 million years. Dense forests, which are common in many parts of the continent now, appear to be a fairly recent feature of its natural history. The results challenge a long-held assumption about how Europe looked before people began clearing land for farming and settlement.

A shifting mosaic rather than a solid canopy

For decades, many conservation plans have been shaped by the idea that dense forests with almost unbroken tree cover were Europe’s original state. Under this view, restoring nature often means letting trees take over open ground or planting woodland where none remains.

The new research suggests this approach may miss an important part of the story. Instead of a uniform blanket of trees, the land was made up of grasslands, shrubs and woodland with varying amounts of tree cover. Many species adapted to both wooded and open environments, and they lived side by side.

The scientists also found that this pattern was not tied to one type of climate. The mixed landscapes existed under temperate conditions similar to those found in much of Europe today, and they also appeared during warmer and colder periods.

Millions of years of evidence

The researchers examined a wide range of records. The oldest date back to the Miocene, a period that started roughly 23 million years in the past, and the newest run up to the era before industrialisation. Earlier studies usually focused on more recent periods, so this work reaches much further back in time.

No single source of evidence can show the full picture of the distant past. The team therefore combined several independent methods. They studied fossil pollen and larger plant remains, charcoal from ancient wildfires, and chemical markers stored in the enamel and skeletons of grazing mammals. They also looked at fossil insects and mammals, as well as ancient environmental DNA taken from sediments.

Lead author Szymon Czyzewski, a PhD student at ECONOVO at Aarhus University, said that using several methods together gave the team more confidence than earlier studies that relied on only one approach. Taken together, the evidence showed a consistent pattern across the entire period.

Large herbivores shaped the landscape

One of the most notable findings concerns large wild animals. Ancient Europe was home to elephants, rhinoceroses, aurochs and bison. As these animals fed on plants and churned up the ground, they kept many areas open. This gave grasses and wildflowers room to grow where dense tree cover would otherwise have crowded them out.

Modern Europe has lost much of this influence. Many of the large wild grazers that once shaped the land have disappeared, and traditional grazing practices have declined. Czyzewski said the biggest change has taken place within roughly the last hundred years, as extensive grazing disappeared from large parts of the countryside.

The study also links animals now linked to farmland, such as larks, jackdaws and the European hamster, to older open woodland habitats. Wild poppies, which are often seen in fields today, may also have thrived where large grazers disturbed the vegetation.

Implications for tree planting

The findings come as European countries expand their forests to store carbon, respond to climate change and protect biodiversity. The researchers accept that forests bring real environmental benefits. However, they argue that planting large areas of dense, uniform woodland may not be the best way to restore native ecosystems.

Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, the senior author, said current reforestation practice in Denmark, where subsidies are only paid for dense forest, and in other parts of Europe is heading in the wrong direction. He warned that this could harm biodiversity and conflict with the habitats that European species evolved in.

The study recommends that restoration focus on maintaining varied landscapes that include open grassland, scattered woodland and areas shaped by natural grazing. As Svenning put it, a key step would be restoring large herbivores that live in the wild.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• ScienceDaily: Scientists discover Europe's ancient forests were nothing like we imagined

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