Abstract
Ensuring comparability between results is a key goal of all paleoecological reconstructions. Quantitative estimates of meteorological variables, as opposed to relative qualitative descriptions, provide the opportunity to compare local paleoenvironmental records against global estimates and incrementally build regional paleoclimatic records. The Bioclimatic Method provides quantitative and qualitative estimates of past landscape composition and climate along with measures of statistical accuracy by applying linear discriminant functions analysis and transfer functions to faunal taxonomic abundance data. By applying this method to the rodent data from Geißenklösterle and Hohle Fels, two Paleolithic cave sites located in the Ach Valley of southwestern Germany, we classify the regional vegetation according to Walters’ zonobiome model. We also present new estimates of meteorological variables including mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, and vegetative activity period of the Ach Valley for the period spanning ~ 60,000 to 35,000 cal BP. The results suggest the Ach Valley contained a non-analogous landscape of arctic tundra and temperate deciduous woodland with occasional arid steppe expansion. Meteorological estimates suggest the climate was significantly colder during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic than today, with higher annual precipitation and dramatic temperature shifts between seasons. These results fit well with climatic reconstructions from Switzerland and the Netherlands based on a variety of proxies. They also provide further evidence of a localized climatic response within southwestern Germany to the stadial-interstadial shifts preceding the Heinrich 4 event. Finally, these results reinforce our previous claims that climatic volatility was not a driving force in the loss of Neanderthal groups throughout the Swabian Jura during OIS 3.
Highlights
The last 20 years of archaeological research have seen a proliferation of efforts at paleoenvironmental reconstruction and climate modelling
Arctic tundra dominates the distribution. This is true at Hohle Fels, where only the oldest Middle Paleolithic horizon, geological horizons (GHs) 12 (> 60,000 BP), has temperate deciduous forest spectra values exceeding those of biome IX
Our linear discriminate function analysis suggests that GH 12 and the Middle Paleolithic as an aggregated assemblage at Hohle Fels would be more correctly classified as biome VI-typical temperate with deciduous forests (Table 4)
Summary
The last 20 years of archaeological research have seen a proliferation of efforts at paleoenvironmental reconstruction and climate modelling. Terrestrial paleoenvironmental records are based on a variety of proxy data sources including stable isotopes, pollen spectra, mammalian community structure, lake sediments, and speleothems. These proxies provide qualitative and/or quantitative climatic data at different scales (i.e. site, regional, and/or continental) covering different time frames (i.e. isolated events, cumulative decades, palimpsests of varying or unknown duration). Many of these records are limited to dichotomous relative categories when describing past climates (warm vs cool, wet vs dry). The application of quantitative statistical methods from other fields within the natural sciences has the potential to increase the resolution and precision of our paleoclimatic data, as well as its comparability across space and time (Lyman 2016)
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