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The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily populated south east of England.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Commoning in the New Forest )〕 It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire and towards east Dorset. The name also refers to the New Forest National Park which has similar boundaries. Additionally the New Forest local government district is a subdivision of Hampshire which covers most of the forest and some nearby areas, although it is no longer the planning authority for the National Park itself. There are many villages dotted around the area, and several small towns in the forest and around its edges. == Prehistory == Like much of England, the site of the New Forest was once deciduous woodland, recolonised by birch and eventually beech and oak following the withdrawal of the ice sheets starting around 12,000 years ago. Some areas were cleared for cultivation from the Bronze Age onwards; the poor quality of the soil in the New Forest meant that the cleared areas turned into heathland "waste", which may have been used even then as grazing-land for horses.〔Cunliffe, Barry, ''Iron Age Communities in Britain'', 2010. pg 428: "One interpretation of this is to suppose that horses were allowed to breed in the wild on the wastelands and were annually rounded up for selection and subsequent training. The proximity of Gussage to the heathlands of the New Forest is suggestive..."〕 There was still a significant amount of woodland in this part of Britain, but this was gradually reduced, particularly towards the end of the Middle Iron Age around 250–100 BC, and most importantly the 12th and 13th centuries, and of this essentially all that remains today is the New Forest.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=New Forest Handbook History of the New Forest Part 1 )〕 There are around two hundred and fifty round barrows〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Hampshire Treasures )〕 within its boundaries, and scattered boiling mounds, and it also includes about 150 scheduled ancient monuments. One such barrow in particular may represent the only known inhumation burial of the Early Iron Age and the only known Hallstatt culture burial in Britain; unfortunately, the acidity of the soil means that bone very rarely survives.〔Cunliffe, Barry; Iron Age Communities in Britain 2010, pg 544.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New Forest」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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