It existed for several millennia as the main climax vegetation in Britain given the relatively warm and moist post-glacial climate and had not yet been destroyed or modified by human intervention.
From the start of the Neolithic period, the wildwood gradually gave way to open plains and fields as human populations grew and people began to significantly shape and exploit the land to their advantage.
[6] The last glacial retreat was followed by a period of prolonged climatic moderation, which eventually gave rise to forests in the form that is familiar to most people of Britain today.
As there are no written records or even folk legends of what the prehistoric wilderness of Britain might have looked like,[1] analyses of pollen and seeds preserved in stratified mineral deposits as well as radiocarbon dating of macrofossils have been necessary to try and reconstruct the ecology and floristic composition of these forests.
It probably spread freely and rapidly from the continent due to its light wind-dispersed seeds and ability to thrive in harsh climates,[7] invading mainly via the land-locked North Sea.
[8] During the Atlantic period, the climate became persistently warmer, wetter and more stable, and the development of British native woodland culminated in the invasion of new broadleaved species from Southern Europe such as small-leaved lime.
Small-leaved lime arrived in Britain around 5500 – 3000 BC, and eventually spread to form extensive areas of continuous limewood in the English lowlands,[3] reaching a maximum during the Holocene climatic optimum.
[2] Since the beginning of this long Atlantic period of apparent climate stability, there was a progressive rise in sea level that eventually cut off Ireland, then Britain, from the European continent.
With Britain's geographical isolation from the continent, the landscape developed into a patchwork of five broad wildwood provinces determined largely by local geography.
[3] Lime, elm, and oak were the commonest wildwood trees of the Atlantic period, whilst Scots pine became increasingly rare, being restricted to the Scottish Highlands and dominating nowhere.
The division of the prehistoric British wildwood into several distinct provinces, each with their own unique tree assemblage, contrasts with the popular view that the natural climax vegetation would have been dominated by oak.
The most notable of these changes was a widespread decline of elm across the country, associated with a sudden increase in agricultural weeds such as Plantago and nettle, as well as early Neolithic settlement.
However, around 700 – 750 BC, the climate became wetter and much colder again, resulting in the expansion of peat bogs over much of Ireland, Scotland, and northern England, and the destruction of large areas of sub-Boreal pine and birch forest.
[14] Although impacts of herbivore grazing are acknowledged to have played an appreciable role in shaping the wildwood landscape of Mesolithic Britain, other disturbance factors such as forest fires, insect attacks, flooding, windthrow from storms and natural death of trees are thought to have been more important in creating these woodland gaps.
[14][16] During the Neolithic period, around 6000 BC, British wildwoods began to decline as the impacts of agriculture became more widespread and persistent, farming practices became more sedentary and the technology improved with the advent of metal tools.