Lateglacial And Early Holocene Environments And Human Occupation In Brandenburg, Eastern Germany

Franziska Kobe,Tengwen Long,Christian Leipe,Pavel E Tarasov,Romy Zibulski,Martin K Bittner,Mayke Wagner,Philipp Hoelzmann

doi:10.24057/2071-9388-2018-50

Abstract

The paper reports on the results of the pollen, plant macrofossil and geochemical analyses and the AMS 14C-based chronology of the «Rudersdorf» outcrop situated east of Berlin in Brandenburg (Germany). The postglacial landscape changed from an open one to generally forested by ca. 14 cal. kyr BP. Woody plants (mainly birch and pine) contributed up to 85% to the pollen assemblages ca. 13.4–12.5 cal. kyr BP. The subsequent Younger Dryas ( YD) interval is characterized by a decrease in arboreal pollen (AP) to 75% but led neither to substantial deforestation nor spread of tundra vegetation. This supports the concept that the YD cooling was mainly limited to the winter months, while summers remained comparably warm and allowed much broader (than initially believed) spread of cold-tolerant boreal trees. Further support for this theory comes from the fact that the relatively low AP values persisted until ca. 10.6 cal. kyr BP, when the «hazel phase» of the regional vegetation succession began. The postglacial hunter-gatherer occupation is archaeologically confirmed in Brandenburg since ca. 13 cal. kyr BP, i.e. much later than in the western part of Germany and ca. 1000 years after the major amelioration in the Rudersdorf environmental record.

Highlights

Palaeoenvironmental and palaeoecological reconstructions of the response to these climatic fluctuations remain hampered by problems inherent with 14C dating and limited by the availability of high-resolution Lateglacial and early Holocene terrestrial records from many regions
New investigations are emerging from different regions offering the possibility to address these issues in greater detail, there are many areas, where understanding Lateglacial and early Holocene climatic and environmental conditions requires more in-depth studies (Tarasov et al 2018) in order to be robustly correlated with reference environmental archives across Eurasia (e.g. Namiotko et al 2015; Stebich et al 2009, 2015; Schlolaut et al 2017)
Our current study reports results of the pollen, plant macrofossil and geochemical analyses and the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating of the “Rüdersdorf”outcrop situated ca. 650 m west of the Paddenluch (Fig. 1c)

Summary

Introduction

Palaeoenvironmental and palaeoecological reconstructions of the response to these climatic fluctuations remain hampered by problems inherent with 14C dating (de Klerk 2002; Litt et al 2009) and limited by the availability of high-resolution Lateglacial and early Holocene terrestrial records from many regions. Yr BP) is characterized by a noticeable increase in pollen concentrations and high AP contents (up to 85%) indicating a dense vegetation cover and high proportions of woody plants in the study area.

Results

Conclusion