Anthropogenic and climate controls on vegetation changes between 1500 BCE and 500 CE reconstructed from a high-resolution pollen record from varved sediments of Lake Mondsee, Austria

Abstract

This study reports a precisely dated pollen record with a 20-year resolution from the varved sediments of Lake Mondsee in the north-eastern European Alps (47°49′N, 13°24′E, 481 m above sea level). The analysed part of core spans the interval between 1500 BCE and 500 CE and allows changes in vegetation composition in relation to climatic changes and human activities in the catchment to be inferred. Intervals of distinct but modest human impact are identified at ca. 1450–1220, 740–490 and 340–190 BCE and from 80 BCE to 180 CE. While the first two intervals are synchronous with prominent salt mining phases during the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age at the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hallstatt, the last two intervals fall within the Late Iron Age and Roman Imperial Era, respectively. Comparison with published records of extreme runoff events obtained from the same sediment core shows that human activities (including agriculture and logging) around Lake Mondsee were low during intervals of high flood frequency as indicated by a higher number of intercalated detrital event layers, but intensified during hydrologically stable intervals. Comparison of the pollen percentages of arboreal taxa with the stable oxygen isotope and potassium ion records of the NGRIP and GISP2 ice cores from Greenland reveals significant positive correlations for Fagus and negative correlations for Betula and Alnus. This underlines the sensitivity of vegetation around Lake Mondsee to temperature fluctuations in the North Atlantic as well as to moisture fluctuations controlled by changes in the intensity of the Siberian High and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) regime.