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Fossil fungal spores recovered from local turf are helping piece together the complex history of how human activity made the Burren what it is today, writes DICK AHLSTROM.

THE RUGGED BURREN landscape of north Co Clare was once covered in pine trees and hazels before being cleared and later grazed flat by early farming activity, according to new research. A clearer picture of the impact of human activity and farming on the Burren over the last 3,500 years has emerged as a result, with the team from NUI Galway relying on an unusual information source – the spores of a fungus that grows on cattle and sheep dung.