Maps that Matter

Pollen Analysis Diagrams

Date: 1934

Creator: Sir Harry Godwin (1901 - 1985)

• Technique for quantitative analysis of changes in vegetation developed by van Post in Sweden in early 1900s.
• Popularized in Britain following Godwin’s 1934 publications of two part article, Pollen Analysis: An Outline of the Problems and Potentialities of the Method (New Phytologist, Vol. 33, No. 5, pp. 325-358).
• Diagrammatic expression of technique exploited by Godwin and other researchers in East Anglia, led to the successful explanation for environmental changes in the Holocene and pioneering of other rigorous dating methodologies.

Godwin-inspired pollen analysis diagram.

(Source: http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/midewin/pollendiag.html)