#medieval-agriculture

#medieval-agriculture

Using pollen data from six lake sediment cores, researchers reconstructed 4,000 years of plant diversity in the western Lake Constance region. Their analysis shows a 48% rise in plant richness between 500 and 1000 CE, during which the number of estimated plant taxa increased from around 27 to 40. Shannon's Diversity Index - a standard measure of ecological diversity - increased by 23%, which corresponds to a 65% rise in the effective number of taxa.