Multi-proxy approach to reconstruct Middle and Late Holocene paleoenvironment and climate in the eastern Carpathians

Abstract

Sediments from lakes are a useful climate archive that provides information about past climate changes and human impact. It is well-known that abrupt climate change can be the trigger of the collapse or migrations of past civilizations. To have a better understanding of the migration of the Yamnaya civilization, located west of the Black Sea at ~5.5-5 cal kyr BP, we hypothesize that past climate changes acts as a driver of this migration. To test this we focus on a sedimentary record retrieved from the Mocearu lake that is located at 780 m a.s.l. in the Buzau mountains (eastern Carpathians, Romania). The record has a length of 7 m and covers the last ~6.5 cal kyr BP based on AMS radiocarbon dates. To reconstruct vegetation, environment and climate during the Middle and Late Holocene, we use complementary techniques: pollen, inorganic (XRF-analysis) and organic geochemistry based on lipid biomarkers (brGDGTs). The reconstruction has been carried out with higher resolution during the Middle Holocene, with the objective of finding evidence of the climatic changes that may have occurred around 5 cal kyr BP. Based on preliminary radiocarbon dating, the climatic reconstruction (based on brGDGTs) shows an increase in temperature from ~6 to 5.5 cal kyr BP, followed by a prominent decrease ~5.3-5 cal kyr BP.