This contribution reflects on the at times uneasy relationship
between palaeoenvironmental data and certain approaches to landscape
archaeology. It highlights the problems as well as the potential of such data
in contextualising the archaeological record and past human activity and
briefly considers the significance of recent methodological advances. A case
study of a later Neolithic wetland site on Hatfield Moors, south Yorkshire is
used to illustrate the significance of chronological and spatial patterns of
environmental change for the interpretation of this monument. The paper concludes
with a discussion of future themes for debate especially as regards issues of
linking palaeoenvironmental data, which provides the critical evidence of
spatial and chronological patterns of landscape change with questions such as
past human perception of these patterns and processes of environmental change.