Conclusions

Abstract

In attempting to summarize the work of two dozen scholars and more than a hundred volunteers over a period exceeding two decades, the best strategy must be to simplify these final thoughts. I will offer a selected set of conclusions in what I hope will be a broad overview. The only danger in this light approach is that I must surely pass over many of the most critical details. For that reason, of course, the serious reader must return to the substance of the preceding chapters. I shall marshal these concluding statements in much the same manner as the book is organized. Thus the order of topics will move from methodology to geological background, to the sequence of ancient vegetation and environments seen by two eminent paleobotanists. Then we come to the two multidisciplinary sets of contributions featuring first the Late Pleistocene and secondly the Early Holocene. At the very end I will predict some of the major directions in which this work will lead, and suggest some of the next challenges that will surely reward future researchers who choose to continue this unfinished work.