Abstract
A profundal core from Litzelsee, a small cirque lake in the western Lake Constance region, was investigated by pollen analysis and dated radiometrically. The upper part of the core, chronologically between 5000 cal bc and 1850 ad, was sampled continuously, resulting in a total of 449 samples, each with a sum of 1,000 arboreal pollen grains. Also in this huge data set, rare taxa, normally lacking or very scarce in pollen profiles, were registered. The ecological evaluation of these, with a focus on anthropogenic indicators, sheds light on environmental and human impact history from the Neolithic to Modern times. Further, the results are put in a regional context, together with seven other mostly unpublished pollen profiles studied in the same way.
Highlights
The impact of food producing economies on the landscape is one of the key issues for modern pollen analysis because land use is the major agent of land cover change in the second half of the Holocene
The western Lake Constance region has an area of about 818 km2 and lies between 395 m and about 750 m a.s.l. (Lang 1990)
The Litzelsee profile allows some deductions of general importance: a central core from a small lake reflects the regional vegetation history generally, but in detail it shows a local picture, at least since the onset of human impact in the middle Holocene
Summary
The impact of food producing economies on the landscape is one of the key issues for modern pollen analysis because land use is the major agent of land cover change in the second half of the Holocene. The mode and tempo of this major change are equivocal, but it is recorded at various levels of resolution in numerous natural archives. Fossil pollen records contain information about vegetation and land-use change and can serve as a proxy for land-use intensity. During its 100 year research history pollen analysis has developed into a major palaeoecological method fuelled by progress in computer capacity and radiocarbon dating. We are aware that profundal sediments from the centre of small lakes are the best material for palaeoecological studies based on pollen analysis. The scientific questions and aims have changed as part of the framework of studies of the past in geosciences and archaeology/historical sciences
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