A high-resolution Late Holocene landscape ecological history inferred from an intramontane basin in the Western Taurus Mountains, Turkey

摘要

Late Holocene vegetation and geotnorphological history is reconstructed from a 800cm long high-resolution palynological and sedimentological record sampled from Bereket, a 6.3 km(2) semi-arid to sub-humid intramontane basin in the Western Taurus Mountains (southwest Turkey). The well-dated Bereket record provides from cal. 360 BC to cal. AD similar to 400 a unique record of biennial-to-decadal landscape changes caused primarily by intensive human impacts against a background of global climate variations. During this period, land clearance with multiple fire episodes, intensive agricultural practices and grazing pressure profoundly altered the pre-existing warm mixed forest. Increasing moisture availability since cal. similar to 280 BC has acted as a trigger to crop cultivation and mountain-adapted arboriculture starting with Juglans regia during the Beysehir Occupation Phase. Pollen from olive groves have been recorded above 1400 to a.s.l. only at cal. similar to 23 BC and have disappeared definitively at cal. AD similar to 294. During this phase, the sediment accumulation rate was extremely high, reflecting landscape instability. From cal. AD 450 to recent times, the area has mainly recorded pasture and minor cultivation activities reflected in stable soils and thin colluvial depths. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.