Tentsmuir: Ten Thousand Years of Environmental History

Tentsmuir has been a scene of human activity for over 10,000 years.It witnessed one of the earliest known occurrences in Scotland of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and has supported human activities throughout the Neolithic and Iron Age.In medieval times it was a home for the Norman nobility, and then a royal hunting forest with highly-valued fishing rights for Scottish Kings.Tentsmuir is prone to flooding in winter due to the front line of dunes blocking drainage to the sea.It provides a natural refuge for a wide range of plants, as well as resident and migrating birds, and other animals, including outstanding populations of butterflies and moths.Consequently, this led to the creation in 1954 of a National Nature Reserve at the north-eastern end of the Tentsmuir Peninsula.Initially, an active period of coastal accretion more than trebled the size of the reserve.Now, however, Tentsmuir is eroding in places. The probability of rising sea levels and increasing exposure to storms may cause a