I am pleased to present this volume of invited reviews and research case studies, produced to mark the retirement of Professor A. G. Smith - one of the leading researchers in Holocene palaeoecology. A. G. Smith took his first degree at the University of Sheffield, graduating in 1951 with a first-class honours degree in Botany. His doctorate was awarded in 1956 for a study in late-Quaternary vege- tational history, based in the Sub-Department of Quaternary Research at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of the late Sir Harry Godwin, FRS. He then researched and taught at Queen's...