The Baltic coast of Northern Poland is an interesting region for palaeoclimatic studies because of the mixed oceanic and continental climatic influences and the fact that the dominance of one or the other of these two influences might have changed over time. Also, unlike many more intensively studied regions of Europe, human impact in the region was rather limited until the 19th century. We present a 1200-year high-resolution record from Stążki mire, an ombrotrophic bog located 35 km from the Baltic Sea coast. Using testate amoebae, stable isotopes (δ 13 C) of Sphagnum stems, pollen, plant macrofossils and dendroecological analyses, our aims were to: 1) reconstruct the last millennium palaeoenvironment in the study site and its surroundings, 2) identify the major wet-dry shifts, 3) determine if those events correlate with climate change and human impact, 4) assess the resilience of the Baltic bog ecosystem following human impact, and 5) compare the palaeo-moisture signal from the Baltic coast with records from more oceanic regions. Two dry periods are inferred at AD 1100-1500 and 1650-1900 (-2005). The first dry shift is probably climate-driven as pollen record shows little evidence of human indicators. The second dry shift can be related to local peat exploitation of the mire. In the 20th century additional limited drainage took place and since ca. AD 1950 the mire has been recovering. From 1500 AD onwards all proxies indicate wetter condition. The beginning of this wet shift occurred during the Little Ice Age and may therefore be a climatic signal. The macrofossil data show that Sphagnum fuscum dominated the pristine mire vegetation but then declined and finally disappeared at ca. AD 1900. This pattern is comparable with the timing of extinction of Sphagnum austinii (= Sphagnum imbricatum) in the UK. This study illustrates the value of high-resolution multi-proxy studies of peat archives to assess the magnitude of anthropogenic land-use changes. This study presents the first direct comparison of testate amoebae and stable isotope data from the same core. The two proxies correlate significantly throughout the record and most strongly for the latter part of the record when most of the variability was recorded.

This high‐resolution, multiproxy, palaeoenvironmental study of the Słowińskie Błota raised bog in N Poland, 10 km from the Baltic Sea, covering the last 1200 years reveals different aspects of environmental change in a range of spatial scales from local to regional. Testate amoebae allowed quantitative reconstruction of the local water table using a transfer function based on a training set from N and W Poland. Special attention is paid to the testate amoeba Arcella discoides, which responds to rapid water‐table fluctuations more than to average surface wetness. Macrofossils supported by local pollen tracked the local vegetation dynamics caused by local human impact and disturbance, including nutrients. Regional pollen showed human‐induced landscape change outside the bog. Tree rings of Pinus sylvestris reflected the history of tree establishment and desiccation of the bog. Strong correlations between DCA axes 1 of regional pollen, of macrofossils and of testate amoebae, and a testate‐amoebae‐based water‐table reconstruction that excludes A. discoides, indicate that changes on all spatial scales are linked, which is explained by a strong hydrologic connection between bog and surroundings. The combination of proxies shows that groundwater levels were modified by both human impact and climate change.

`Little Ice Age' (LIA) climatic deteriorations have been abundantly documented in various archives such as ice, lake sediments and peat bog deposits. Palaeoecological analyses of peat samples have identified these climatic deteriorations using a range of techniques, for example palynology, plant macrofossils, testate amoebae or carbon isotopic analyses. The use of inorganic geochemistry and the reconstruction of dust fluxes has remained a challenge in tracing the nature of LIA climatic changes. Although the idea of enhanced erosion conditions and storminess is commonly discussed, the conditions for dust deposition in peatlands over Europe during the LIA are rarely favourable, because the natural forest cover over Europe was much more important than nowadays, preventing dust deposition. This intense forest canopy masks the deposition of dust in peatlands. In northern Poland, near the Baltic shore, the Słowińskie Błota area was deforested around AD 1100, ie, just before the LIA, and therefore constitutes a key area for the reconstruction of LIA climatic change. With the support of a well-constrained chronology, climatic fluctuations are recorded in an ombrotrophic bog using inorganic geochemistry, plant macrofossils and carbon isotopic analyses. The reconstruction of LIA climatic changes is in good agreement with other records from Poland and NE Europe. However, a c. 50-year discrepancy can be observed between various records. This discrepancy is possibly due to progressive time-dependent cooling gradient from north to south Europe.