Pleistocene hypothesis – moving Savanna perceptual preference hypothesis beyond Savanna

We provide an extension of the Savanna perceptual preference hypothesis (“Savanna Hypothesis”), supposing that interaction with landscapes offering survival advantage for human groups during evolution might have gradually evolved to permanent landscape preferences. This additional support is based on the palaeoenvironmental analysis of the spread of modern humans into Europe in the late Pleistocene and their living environments there. Our hypothesis is that the preference for park-like landscapes after African savannas experienced a kind of “refreshment” in the Pleistocene. Thus, preferences for certain types of natural settings and scenes may have a more continuous evolutionary history than previously thought. The extended Savanna Hypothesis termed “Pleistocene Hypothesis” might stimulate further work on this important topic linking human evolution and human environmental preferences

A Late Würmian and Holocene pollen profile from Tüttensee, Upper Bavaria, as evidence of 15 millennia of landscape history in the Chiemsee glacier region

A late Würmian and Holocene pollen profile from Tüttensee near Chiemsee, Bavaria, covering 14 millennia of vegetation history, shows the late Würmian reforestation of the area, Holocene woodland development, and later the human impact on the landscape. In the early Holocene a distinct Ulmus phase preceded the Corylus and Quercus expansion. Afterwards, between 6000 and 4000 BCE, Picea was most common. The expansion of Fagus and Abies started at 4000 BCE, together with the decline of Ulmus. Fagus was more common than Abies. From 500 BCE Abies started to decline, Fagus has also declined from 1000 CE onwards. Before the modern times Picea/Pinus phase Quercus is prevailing. The prehistoric human impact is rather weak. A short reforestation phase at ~ 1 BCE – 1 CE hints at the rather complex migration history in this region with so called Celts, Germanic people and Romans involved. Strong human impact indicated by cereals, Plantago lanceolata, other human indicators and deforestation started at 900 CE

The Eurasian Modern Pollen Database (EMPD), version 2

The Eurasian (née European) Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) was established in 2013 to provide a public database of high-quality modern pollen surface samples to help support studies of past climate, land cover, and land use using fossil pollen. The EMPD is part of, and complementary to, the European Pollen Database (EPD) which contains data on fossil pollen found in Late Quaternary sedimentary archives throughout the Eurasian region. The EPD is in turn part of the rapidly growing Neotoma database, which is now the primary home for global palaeoecological data. This paper describes version 2 of the EMPD in which the number of samples held in the database has been increased by 60 % from 4826 to 8134. Much of the improvement in data coverage has come from northern Asia, and the database has consequently been renamed the Eurasian Modern Pollen Database to reflect this geographical enlargement. The EMPD can be viewed online using a dedicated map-based viewer at https://empd2.github.io and downloaded in a variety of file formats at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.909130 (Chevalier et al., 2019)Swiss National Science Foundation | Ref. 200021_16959

The Eurasian Modern Pollen Database (EMPD), version 2

The Eurasian (nee European) Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) was established in 2013 to provide a public database of high-quality modern pollen surface samples to help support studies of past climate, land cover, and land use using fossil pollen. The EMPD is part of, and complementary to, the European Pollen Database (EPD) which contains data on fossil pollen found in Late Quaternary sedimentary archives throughout the Eurasian region. The EPD is in turn part of the rapidly growing Neotoma database, which is now the primary home for global palaeoecological data. This paper describes version 2 of the EMPD in which the number of samples held in the database has been increased by 60% from 4826 to 8134. Much of the improvement in data coverage has come from northern Asia, and the database has consequently been renamed the Eurasian Modern Pollen Database to reflect this geographical enlargement. The EMPD can be viewed online using a dedicated map-based viewer at https://empd2.github.io and downloaded in a variety of file formats at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.909130 (Chevalier et al., 2019).Peer reviewe

The Eurasian Modern Pollen Database (EMPD), version 2

Abstract. The Eurasian (née European) Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) was established in 2013 to provide a public database of high-quality modern pollen surface samples to help support studies of past climate, land cover, and land use using fossil pollen. The EMPD is part of, and complementary to, the European Pollen Database (EPD) which contains data on fossil pollen found in Late Quaternary sedimentary archives throughout the Eurasian region. The EPD is in turn part of the rapidly growing Neotoma database, which is now the primary home for global palaeoecological data. This paper describes version 2 of the EMPD in which the number of samples held in the database has been increased by 60 % from 4826 to 8134. Much of the improvement in data coverage has come from northern Asia, and the database has consequently been renamed the Eurasian Modern Pollen Database to reflect this geographical enlargement. The EMPD can be viewed online using a dedicated map-based viewer at https://empd2.github.io and downloaded in a variety of file formats at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.909130 (Chevalier et al., 2019).</jats:p

Pollenanalytische Untersuchungen zur Rekonstruktion der Vegetationsgeschichte im südlichen Iller-Wertach-Jungmoränengebiet seit dem Spätglazial

In dieser Arbeit wird die vegetationsgeschichtliche Entwicklung im südlichen Iller-Wertach-Jungmoränengebiet seit dem Spätglazial anhand von pollenanalytisch untersuchten Bohrkernen aus dem Kempter Wald (westliches Mehlblockmoos und Dürrenbühlmoos) und aus dem Illertal südlich Kempten (Unterer Inselsee) vorgestellt. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf dem hochauflösend ausgezählten Standardpollendiagramm aus dem Mehlblockmoos, das auf einer ausreichenden Zahl an 14C-Datierungen gestützt ist. Durch diese Pollenprofile konnte die Vegetationsgeschichte in diesem Landschaftsraum erstmals detailliert rekonstruiert werden. Insgesamt wurden 664 Proben mit jeweils mindestens 1000 Gehölzpollenkörnern (ohne Alnus) ausgezählt, abgesehen von pleniglazialen und frühspätglazialen Straten, als Baumbirken noch nicht eingewandert waren. In den Pollendiagrammen aus dem Mehlblockmoos und dem Unteren Inselsee ist auch das Spätglazial repräsentiert. Das in das Atlantikum datierende 8200 cal. BP-Event lässt sich in allen drei Pollenprofilen nachweisen und stellt mit der Depression der Corylus-Kurve einen hervorragenden biostratigraphischen Marker dar. Der Beginn des signifikanten anthropogenen Einflusses datiert im Profil Mehlblockmoos in die Bronzezeit sowie in der Umgebung des Dürrenbühlmooses und des Unteren Inselsees in die Eisenzeit. In den beiden Archiven westliches Mehlblockmoos und Dürrenbühlmoos wurde auch die moorgeschichtliche Entwicklung vom Niedermoor über ein Zwischenmoorstadium zum Hochmoor anhand der Pollenstratigraphie und Georadar-gestützten Transektbohrungen rekonstruiert. Zusätzlich wurden in diesen Mooren Vegetationskartierungen und Rezentpollenanalysen durchgeführt. Für den Unteren Inselsee wurde zudem die See- und Moorentwicklung auf Basis der palynologischen Befunde und lithostratigraphischen Analysen des untersuchten Bohrkerns beschrieben