Latest Pleistocene paleoenvironmental reconstructions from the Swabian Jura, southwestern Germany: Evidence from stable isotope analysis and micromammal remains

There is a widespread belief that the abrupt warming at 14.7 ka had a profound impact on the environment. However, the direct correlation between the global climatic event and changes in local environments is not obvious. We examined faunal succession in an intra-mountain basin of the Western Carpathians to assess the potential influence of the climatic change between Greenland Stadial-2a and Greenland Interstadial-1e on the local environment. We investigated three vertebrate assemblages (total number of identified specimens = 18,745; minimum number of individuals = 7515; 138 taxa) from Obłazowa Cave (western entrance) and a Rock overhang in Cisowa Rock, radiocarbon dated to the period before and after the global warming, between ca. 17.0 and 14.0 ka. Our data revealed that the major abrupt warming that occurred 14.7 ka had little impact on the local environment, which could suggest that ecosystems in Central Europe were resilient to the abrupt global climate changes. The increase in fauna population sizes and species diversities in local biotopes was gradual and began long before the temperature increase. This was supported by the analysis of ancient DNA of Microtus arvalis, which showed a gradual increase in effective population size after 19.0 ka. The results of palaeoclimatic reconstruction pointed out that the compared sites were characterized by similar climatic conditions. According to our calculations, the differences in the annual mean temperatures did not exceed 0.5°C and mean This article is part of the Topical Collection on Post-glacial human subsistence and settlement patterns Anna Lemanik and Mateusz Baca contributed equally and should be regarded as joint first authors.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

The impact of major warming at 14.7 ka on environmental changes and activity of Final Palaeolithic hunters at a local scale (Orawa-Nowy Targ Basin, Western Carpathians, Poland

Lemanik

Baca

Wertz

et al. 2020

“…Our study includes materials excavated during 2016, the first year of excavation, through 2018. During these seasons, excavators uncovered seven geological horizons (GH) and archaeological horizons (AH): GH1/AHI, GH2/AHII, and GH2a/AHIIa are Holocene, while GH3/ AHIII, GH4/AHIV, GH5/AHV, and GH6/AHVI date to the Late Glacial (Conard et al , 2019Wong et al 2020). Figure 2 presents a stratigraphic profile from the site and we summarize the cultural affiliations and dating for each horizon in Table 1 (see also Conard et al , 2019Wong et al 2020).…”

Section: Langmahdhaldementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The team excavated GH5/AHV and GH6/AHVI in 2 to 3 cm deep sublayers that follow the geology of the site. Following the methods of our paleoenvironmental reconstructions (Wong et al 2020), we present the microfaunal results for GH5/ AHV and GH6/AHVI by sublayer. Because GH3/AHIII has very few archaeological remains, excavators did not waterscreen all sediment from this horizon; they only waterscreened the southwestern 50 × 50 cm subquadrant from each 1 × 1 m quadrant.…”

Section: Langmahdhaldementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following our initial study, we produced the first highresolution paleoenvironmental reconstructions for the Late Glacial in the Swabian Jura based on microfaunal remains and stable isotope data from horse and reindeer bone collagen (Wong et al 2020). With this work, we demonstrated that Late Glacial environments in the Swabian Jura were more heterogeneous than modern tundra environments and likely even included stands of trees.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With this work, we demonstrated that Late Glacial environments in the Swabian Jura were more heterogeneous than modern tundra environments and likely even included stands of trees. In general, more heterogeneous environments have a higher species diversity (MacArthur and MacArthur 1961;Ganzhorn et al 1997;Ceballos et al 1999;Southwell et al 1999;Cramer and Willig 2002;Williams et al 2002;Ricklefs and Relyea 2014, p. 426), indicating that Magdalenian hunter-gatherers in the Swabian Jura had access to a larger diversity of animal and plant resources than are available in modern tundra environments (Wong et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New perspectives on human subsistence during the Magdalenian in the Swabian Jura, Germany

Wong

Starkovich

Drucker

et al. 2020

Self Cite

The Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany is famous for its Paleolithic sites which have been studied since the 1860s. While there is a rich tradition of research on the Magdalenian, many of the best-known sites were not excavated using modern methods, and recently, few discoveries of new sites have been made. Thus, much of the information on this period comes from sites lacking data collected using modern standards. This has left open questions regarding the recolonization of the Swabian Jura and hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement during the Magdalenian in the region. Langmahdhalde is a recently discovered rock shelter in the Lone Valley of the Swabian Jura that has intact, well-stratified horizons dating to the Magdalenian with associated lithic artifacts, faunal remains, and combustion features. In this paper, we present a study of the faunal materials from this new site. We use the macrofaunal remains to discuss human subsistence and a taphonomic analysis of the microfaunal remains to determine the spatial scale of our previously published paleoenvironmental interpretations. Our results on human subsistence support previous interpretations from other Magdalenian assemblages in Central Europe. Further, our taphonomic study of the microfauna suggests that our paleoenvironmental analyses are relatively local, within a maximum of 70 km2 from the rock shelter. We place these results within the larger context of human paleoecology in the region and suggest that the successful resettlement of the Swabian Jura by Magdalenian peoples during the Late Glacial was probably facilitated by the presence of a higher diversity of resources on the landscape compared to regions to the west.

A quantitative paleoclimatic reconstruction of the non-analogue environment of oxygen isotope stage 3: new data from small mammal records of southwestern Germany

Rhodes

Conard

2021

Self Cite

Ensuring comparability between results is a key goal of all paleoecological reconstructions. Quantitative estimates of meteorological variables, as opposed to relative qualitative descriptions, provide the opportunity to compare local paleoenvironmental records against global estimates and incrementally build regional paleoclimatic records. The Bioclimatic Method provides quantitative and qualitative estimates of past landscape composition and climate along with measures of statistical accuracy by applying linear discriminant functions analysis and transfer functions to faunal taxonomic abundance data. By applying this method to the rodent data from Geißenklösterle and Hohle Fels, two Paleolithic cave sites located in the Ach Valley of southwestern Germany, we classify the regional vegetation according to Walters’ zonobiome model. We also present new estimates of meteorological variables including mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, and vegetative activity period of the Ach Valley for the period spanning ~ 60,000 to 35,000 cal BP. The results suggest the Ach Valley contained a non-analogous landscape of arctic tundra and temperate deciduous woodland with occasional arid steppe expansion. Meteorological estimates suggest the climate was significantly colder during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic than today, with higher annual precipitation and dramatic temperature shifts between seasons. These results fit well with climatic reconstructions from Switzerland and the Netherlands based on a variety of proxies. They also provide further evidence of a localized climatic response within southwestern Germany to the stadial-interstadial shifts preceding the Heinrich 4 event. Finally, these results reinforce our previous claims that climatic volatility was not a driving force in the loss of Neanderthal groups throughout the Swabian Jura during OIS 3.