Frans Vera’s book, Grazing Ecology and Forest History, published in English in 2000, has generated considerable debate and not a little controversy. Whether one agrees with his views on the role of wild grazing in shaping pre-Neolithic European landscapes, or its potential to generate wildlife-rich countryside in the future, there can be no doubt that his book stimulated a re-evaluation of what we can really tell from palyo-ecological work (principally pollen analysis, but increasingly interpretation of subfossil insect assemblages).