Expanding known dinoflagellate distributions : investigations of slurry cultures from Caspian Sea sediment

To investigate the disparity between plankton and cyst records, sediment slurry cultures were used to isolate the motile stage of dinoflagellates from Caspian Sea sediment. This has resulted in new records for this area of Kryptoperidinium foliaceum, Gymnodinium aureolum and Woloszynskia sp. and for the cyst record, Scrippsiella acuminata. Two Gonyaulax species were isolated, one was identified as Gonyaulax baltica and the other an unknown species. Cultures of Lingulodinium polyedra were also isolated. The approach of using slurries was useful to provide cultures from sediments that were relatively poor in dinoflagellate cysts with contents

Human responses to environmental change on the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods

This paper presents results of a multidisciplinary research initiative examining human responses to environmental change at the intersection of the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea and the foothills of the Alborz Mountains during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Our palaeo-environmental analysis of two sedimentary cores obtained from a lagoon in close proximity to four caves, occupied by human groups during the transition from hunting and gathering to food-producing ways of life in this region, confirms Charles McBurney's 1968 hypothesis that when Caspian Sea levels were high, Mesolithic hunters were reliant on seal and deer, but as water levels receded and a wide coastal plain emerged, hunters consumed a different range of herbivorous mammalian species. Palynological evidence obtained from these two cores also demonstrates that the cool and dry climatic conditions often associated with the Younger Dryas stadial do not appear to have been extreme in this region. Thus, increasingly sedentary hunting and gathering groups could have drawn on plant and animal resources from multiple ecological niches without suffering significant resource stress or reduced population levels that may have been encountered in neighbouring regions. Our analyses of botanical, faunal and archaeological remains from a recently-discovered open-air Mesolithic and aceramic Neolithic site also shows an early process of Neolithization in the southern Caspian basin, which was a very gradual, low-cost adaptation to new ways of life, with neither the abandonment of hunting and gathering, nor a climatic trigger event for the emergence of a low-level, food-producing society.This paper presents results of a multidisciplinary research initiative examining human responses to environmental change at the intersection of the southern coastal plain of the Caspian Sea and the foothills of the Alborz Mountains during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Our palaeo-environmental analysis of two sedimentary cores obtained from a lagoon in close proximity to four caves, occupied by human groups during the transition from hunting and gathering to food-producing ways of life in this region, confirms Charles McBurney's 1968 hypothesis that when Caspian Sea levels were high, Mesolithic hunters were reliant on seal and deer, but as water levels receded and a wide coastal plain emerged, hunters consumed a different range of herbivorous mammalian species. Palynological evidence obtained from these two cores also demonstrates that the cool and dry climatic conditions often associated with the Younger Dryas stadial do not appear to have been extreme in this region. Thus, increasingly sedentary hunting and gathering groups could have drawn on plant and animal resources from multiple ecological niches without suffering significant resource stress or reduced population levels that may have been encountered in neighbouring regions. Our analyses of botanical, faunal and archaeological remains from a recently-discovered open-air Mesolithic and aceramic Neolithic site also shows an early process of Neolithization in the southern Caspian basin, which was a very gradual, low-cost adaptation to new ways of life, with neither the abandonment of hunting and gathering, nor a climatic trigger event for the emergence of a low-level, food-producing society.status: publishe

Late Little Ice Age palaeoenvironmental records from the Anzali and Amirkola Lagoons (south Caspian Sea): Vegetation and sea level changes

This is a postprint version of the article. The official published article can be found from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier Ltd.Two internationally important Ramsar lagoons on the south coast of the Caspian Sea (CS) have been studied by palynology on short sediment cores for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic investigations. The sites lie within a small area of very high precipitation in a region that is otherwise dry. Vegetation surveys and geomorphological investigations have been used to provide a background to a multidisciplinary interpretation of the two sequences covering the last four centuries. In the small lagoon of Amirkola, the dense alder forested wetland has been briefly disturbed by fire, followed by the expansion of rice paddies from AD1720 to 1800. On the contrary, the terrestrial vegetation reflecting the diversity of the Hyrcanian vegetation around the lagoon of Anzali remained fairly complacent over time. The dinocyst and non-pollen palynomorph assemblages, revealing changes that have occurred in water salinity and water levels, indicate a high stand during the late Little Ice Age (LIA), from AD < 1620 to 1800–1830. In Amirkola, the lagoon spit remained intact over time, whereas in Anzali it broke into barrier islands during the late LIA, which merged into a spit during the subsequent sea level drop. A high population density and infrastructure prevented renewed breaking up of the spit when sea level reached its maximum (AD1995). Similar to other sites in the region around the southern CS, these two lagoonal investigations indicate that the LIA had a higher sea level as a result of more rainfall in the drainage basin of the CS.The coring and the sedimentological analyses were funded by the Iranian National Institute for Oceanography in the framework of a research project entitled “Investigation of the Holocene sediment along the Iranian coast of Caspian Sea: central Guilan”. The radiocarbon date of core HCGL02 was funded by V. Andrieu (Europôle Méditerranéen de l'Arbois, France) and that of core HCGA04 by Brunel University

Late Pleistocene and Holocene sea-level change and coastal paleoenvironment evolution along the Iranian Caspian shore

© The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).The level of the Caspian Sea is influenced by rivers mostly from the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere and therefore any change of its catchments including temperature and precipitation directly reflects on Caspian Sea-level. We reconstructed Late Pleistocene to Holocene Caspian Sea-level by a multi-disciplinary approach from a 27.7m long core in the SE corner of the Iranian Caspian coast in the Gomishan Lagoon. Late Pleistocene deposits containing typical Pleistocene fauna and dated around 20,120 cal yr BP bordered with a major hiatus indicating sea-level fall. Lagoonal deposits with shells dated at around 10,590 cal yr BP suggest that, after this deep lowstand, an initial transgression started, leading to landward advance of barrier–lagoon systems which still continued without any lowstand until 8400 cal yr BP. This corresponded to a biofacies change from lagoonal to the deeper biofacies including diatom and Gastropoda species. Around 8400 cal yr BP sea-level started to fall again, and reddish oxidized sediments with abundant foraminifera (Ammonia beccarii) record a regressive phase around 7700 cal yr BP. The mid-Holocene between 15.7 and 4.9 depths is characterized by a shallow marine environment mostly with high carbonate and gypsum contents, and lagoonal and highstand tract with no subaerial facies. The upper part of the core above a 4.9 m depth reflects at least five Late Holocene Caspian Sea-level cycles from 3260 cal yr BP onward. The Caspian Sea-levels are influenced both by global and regional events.The Oceanography Institute and Cultural Heritage Tourism Organization of Mazandaran

Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean

This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past ("palaeoenvironmental sciences"), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia

Modern pollen rain–vegetation relationships along a forest–steppe transect in the Golestan National Park, NE Iran

Pollen rain-vegetation relationships were studied over a forest-steppe transect in Golestan National Park, NE Iran. The surface pollen percentages were compared to the vegetation composition of the respective vegetation types in 18 sampling points using both descriptive and numerical approaches. Hyrcanian lowland forests are characterized by pollen assemblages dominated by Quercus, Carpinus betulus and low frequencies of Zelkova carpinifolia. Both Parrotia persica and Zelkova carpinifolia show a very low pollen representation in modern surface samples, an under-representation that should be taken into account in the interpretation of past vegetation records. Transitional communities between the forest and steppe including Acer monspessulanum subsp. turcomanicum, Crataegus and Paliurus scrubs, Juniperus excelsa woodlands and shrub-steppe patches are more difficult to distinguish in pollen assemblages, however, they are characterized by higher values of the dominant shrub species. The transitional vegetation communities at the immediate vicinity of the forest show also a substantial amount of grass pollen. Many insect-pollinated taxa are strongly under-represented in the pollen rain including most of the rosaceous trees and shrubs, Rhamnus, Paliurus, Acer and Berberis. Artemisia steppes are characterized by very high values of Artemisia pollen and the near absence of tree pollen

Vegetation history and climatic fluctuations on a transect along the Dead Sea west shore and impact on past societies over the last 3500 years.

This study represents the vegetation history of the last 3500 years and conducts an analysis of the climatic fluctuations on a 75 km long transect on the western Dead Sea shore. Palynological and sedimentological data are available from six cores near Mount Sedom, Ein Boqueq, and Ein Gedi and from outcrops near Ze'elim and Ein Feshkha. The comparison of the pollen data with the lake levels shows synchronous trends. During the Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age and Hellenistic to Byzantine Period the high lake level of the Dead Sea signals an increase in precipitation. Contemporaneously, values of cultivated plants indicate an increase in agriculture. Lake level is low during the Late Bronze Age, within the Iron Age and at the end of the Byzantine period, indicating dry periods when all pds show a decrease of cultivated plants. Forest regeneration led by drought-resistant pines is observed in all pollen diagrams (pds) following the agricultural decline in the Byzantine period and, in the pds near Ein Boqeq, Ze'elim and Ein Feshkha, during the late Iron Age. The modern vegetation gradient is reflected in the palaeo-records: a stronger expansion of Mediterranean vegetation and cultivated plants in the northern sites is recognisable

Dark Nature : Responses of humans and ecosystems to rapid environmental changes

Impact of rapid environmental changes on humans and ecosystems An environmental catastrophe is poorly defined, but generally, from the point of view of an earth scientist, is thought to be either a specific brief event (earthquakes, volcanic eruption, tsunamis) or a pervasive evolution at the time scale of the century or less (epidemics, dry periods) over a large area, significant enough to be registered in the sedimentary, chemical or biological earth archives and to have an impact on society. The full scale of rapid environmental changes has not been recorded in the short period covered by the instrumental record. Therefore it is essential to turn to geological and archaeological archives that span a much longer timescale. In some cases of high resolution, they may serve as adequate surrogates for the instrumental record. The societal response (such as collapse, migration) to external forcing (such as strength, frequency of the event) has a non-linear nature. Unless good science is done (robust dating or duration control), it may be difficult to prove a causality. The amplitude of a catastrophe will be larger if it combines the following: 1) rapid onset and long duration, 2) large area, or large proportion of the settlement, 3) inflexible society unable to adapt, and finally 4) an already stressed society or environment. Two special issues of Quaternary International, each containing eleven papers, have been prepared on this topic. This first volume (the present one) concentrates on the impact of rapid and catastrophic environmental changes on humans and ecosystems. These papers present methodologies and case studies as well as a paper more directed to end-users. The second volume (Leroy et al., 2006) focuses on the responses of humans and ecosystems to rapid and catastrophic environmental changes. The investigations presented here explore the past capacity of humans to react to drastic changes affecting significantly their environment. Responses are related to population dynamics (migration), activities (land use, subsistence), societal structure, or belief. Holocene societies changed in depth within the neolithisation process: domestication of animals and plants, and emergence of civilisations are key elements in the study of human adaptation potential. The examples here present evidence of how a drastic change can stimulate social and cultural development, or can be the cause of a culture collapse or emergence. These studies provide caution regarding environmental determinism, and point out that no simple rules seem to govern human evolution. This volume begins with a paper by Walker and Surge on the development of an isotopic method to reconstruct past temperature and salinity from coupled analysis of shells and otoliths found in archaeological sites of southwest Florida dating of the last two millennia. The negative impact of agriculture on human health at the beginning of the Holocene in Europe is reconstructed by Larsen from the analysis of human skeletal remains. Sallares proposes that environmental changes altering mosquito-breeding sites in many southern European coastal wetlands favoured the spread of malaria during the Holocene. Ollive et al. present the results of their investigation of a Gallo-Roman town in the southern Upper Rhine Graben that has been affected by four major floods between AD 20 and AD 145/ 146. Dinis et al. investigated the Holocene infill of three coastal lagoons in central Portugal and their impacts on humans as well as the reverse. A study of pollen and dinoflagellates by Leroy et al., set in the framework of instrumental data and biological surveys, showed the link between fluctuating sea levels of the Karabogaz-Gol/ Caspian Sea system and their rapidly changing environment. Stancikaite et al. found a connection between Holocene vegetational changes and human occupation in the surroundings of a lake in northwest Lithuania. The 4.1 cal. ka BP event seems to have been detected in the Congo deep-sea fan by palynological analyses (Marret et al.). It is expressed by more open vegetation in the lowland regions. Williams and Nottage analysed the synoptic conditions of the 1999 wet year in Sudan as a potential analogue for the environment of Later Stone Age peoples of the early Holocene, who occupied sandy ridges seasonally. Renssen et al. have examined the climate of the end of the African Humid period with a coupled atmosphere\u2013ocean\u2013vegetation model. The decrease of precipitation seems to be due to an orbitally forced reduction of summer insolation. In the western Sahara the transition is not linear but has frequent fluctuations back to more humidity. This volume ends with a paper of Schmidt-Thome\ub4 et al. who introduce maps of economic risks of floods and earthquakes in Europe with the aim of facilitating targeted responses and policies. The papers assembled in these two special issues of Quaternary International are derived from three conferences ARTICLE IN PRESS 1040-6182/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2006.01.003 on the theme of catastrophic and other rapid environmental changes and human response. The first one, \u2018\u2018Environmental catastrophes and recoveries in the Holocene\u2019\u2019, was held at Brunel University (UK) in August\u2013 September 2002 organised by S. Leroy and I. Stewart (abstracts available in Leroy and Stewart 2002). The second meeting, \u2018\u2018Rapid and catastrophic environmental changes in the Holocene and human response\u2019\u2019, was a joint activity of INQUA, ICSU-Dark Nature and IGCP 490 and was held in Mauritania in January 2004 (organised by S. Leroy, www.mun.ca/canqua/igcp490/mauritania.html; abstracts available in Leroy and Costa, 2004). The final one was the result of two special sessions at the 32nd IGC congress in Florence in August 2004 (M. Cremaschi and S. Leroy on \u2018\u2018Geoarchaeology for climatic changes and catastrophic events in human history\u2019\u2019; and A. Berger and S. Leroy, \u2018\u2018Rapid and catastrophic geological changes and societal response\u2019\u2019 (www.32igc.info/igc32/search/). The first of these reunions was particularly important because it lead to the establishment of two important international projects which stimulated discussion and provided synergy for these special issues: ICSU \u2018\u2018Dark nature: rapid natural change and human response\u2019\u2019 (www.mun.ca/canqua/ ICSU-DN/ICSU-DN_aims.htm) (2004 and 2005) and IGCP 490 \u2018\u2018The role of Holocene environmental catastrophes in human history\u2019\u2019 (www.mun.ca/canqua/igcp490/) (2003 to 2007). The Dark Nature project ran from 2004 to 2005 with funding from the International Council for Sciences (ICSU), the International Scientific Union (IUGS), the International Quaternary Association (INQUA) and several other organisations. The aim was to refine the record of rapid environmental changes affecting physical environments and ecosystems during the Holocene, and to examine how past societies and communities reacted in the face of harmful change. Under the Dark Nature project, six interdisciplinary meetings were organised: Mauritania (January 2004), Mozambique (November 2004) and in 2005: Argentina, Iran, Canada and Italy. These focussed on arid, fluvial, lacustrine, coastal, circum- Arctic, mountainous and other environments where major natural changes have had profound effects on people and ecosystems. We are grateful to the individuals who encouraged this project, especially Prof. Tony Berger (Canada) and to the many funding bodies, large and small, who financed it. References Leroy, S., Costa P. (Eds.), 2004. Environmental catastrophes in Mauritania, the desert and the coast. In: Volume of abstracts and field guide. ICSU Dark Nature-IGCP490, First joint meeting, 4\u201318 January 2004 Mauritania. 198pp. http://atlas-conferences.com/cgi-bin/ abstract/camu-01 Leroy, S., Stewart, I. (Eds.), 2002. Environmental catastrophes and recovery in the Holocene. In: volume of abstracts, Conference held at Brunel University, West London, 28 August\u20132 September 2002. 90pp. http://atlas-conferences.com/c/a/i/q/01.htm Leroy, S.A.G., Jousse, H., Cremaschi, M., 2006. Dark nature: responses of humans and ecosystems to rapid environmental changes. Quaternary International 153. S.A.G. Leroy Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Institute for the Environment, Brunel University (West London), Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK E-mail address: [email protected] H. Jousse Institu\ua8t fu\ua8r Pala\ua8oanatomie, Domestikationsforschung und Geschichte der Tiermedezin, 37 Kaulbachstrasse, D-80539 Mu\ua8nchen, Germany M. Cremaschi University of Milan, CNR-IDPA, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra \u2018\u2018A. Desio,\u2019\u2019 Via Mangiagalli 34, Milano, 1-20132, Italy ARTICLE IN PRESS 2 Editorial / Quaternary International 150 (2006) 1\u2013