freshwater impacts recorded in tetraunsaturated alkenones and alkenone sea surface temperatures from the okhotsk sea across millennial scale cycles 1 we present records of phytoplankton produced alkenones down a long piston core which reveal changes of sea surface temperature sst and sea surface salinity sss in the southwestern okhotsk sea over the past 120 ka between 20 and 60 ka b p alkenone derived temperatures typically increased by 6 c 8 c from periods corresponding within a few hundred years to stadials to those corresponding to interstadials recorded in greenland ice cores the abundance of c37 4 alkenone relative to total c37 alkenones percent c37 4 a possible proxy for salinity indicated that during most low sss was associated with high sst the warm freshwater events might be related to 1 a decline in the supply of saline water entering the okhotsk sea through the soya strait 2 strengthening of the freshwater supply from the amur river and precipitation over the okhotsk sea associated mainly with increased asian summer monsoon activity and 3 the effect of melting sea ice these findings increase our understanding of the close linkage between high and low latitudes in relation to climate change and the synchronicity of climate changes within a few centuries between the pacific and the atlantic sides of the northern hemisphere

lama guanicoe bone collagen stable isotope c and n indicate climatic and ecological variation during holocene in northwest patagonia abstract this paper explores how significant are the ecological and climatic variables to influence the stable isotopes of guanacos lama guanicoe bone collagen carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios are assumed as a macro regional average value in west argentina mostly as a baseline to model archaeological human diet if stable isotopes on mammals reflex ecology and climate we need to know how those variables influence mammals bone stable isotope ratio this paper analyses the 13c 12c and 15 n 14n ratio on bone collagen on 122 guanacos from northwest patagonia during the holocene the results confirm significant variation in both isotopes between monte and andean patagonian specimens guanacos from monte shows higher 13c and 15n than those from andean patagonian temporal trends indicate variation through holocene but this variation is not spatially homogeneous in this paper we suggest that medieval climatic anomaly had stronger effect in monte desert than in patagonia desert generating driest and or hottest conditions between 1250 and 600 years bp those variations need to be considered to reconstruct human diet at least during the second part of the holocene

the aurignacian way of life contextualizing early modern human adaptation in the carpathian basin abstract the culture and dispersal of early modern humans are top priorities of many research agendas while the debate primarily centers on genetics dispersal trajectories and points of earliest presence the context climate landscape demography culture of the colonizing process is usually considered in a coarse grained manner or even ignored to understand the context of human dispersal and to decipher relevant push and pull factors requires the consideration of multiple environmental proxies and the research on different geographic scales in this paper we present the late quaternary carpathian basin as a specific context area of early modern human dispersal into europe the multitude of early upper paleolithic sites in this region suggests that it was part of a major dispersal corridor along the danube and its catchment area some 40 000 years ago the aurignacian land use model describes the interaction of early modern humans with their environment one important parameter is the specific distribution of archaeological sites that exemplifies their boundedness to specific eco zones to reconstruct the latter paleo environmental proxies and archaeological data are examined together in regional vector models and in a gis based landscape archaeology approach in the final section we present the carpathian basin as an idiosyncratic habitat that mirrors the dynamics and complexity of early modern human adaptation

comment on large volume phreatomagmatic ignimbrites from the colli albani volcano middle pleistocene italy by d de rita g giordano a esposito m fabbri and s rodani jvgr 2002 118 77 98

u series dating of collagen a step toward direct u series dating of fossil bone abstract fossil bones are often the only material that may be dated by numerical methods a commonly accepted method of bone dating is the radiocarbon method but radiocarbon dating is limited to material younger than 40 60 ka to date direct dating of bone samples by u series methods has not been successful because of post depositional uranium uptake this paper tests the use of u series dating of bones in a new way by dating the collagen extracted from fossil bones low uranium content in collagen extracted from recent and fossil bones suggests that no uranium accumulates in this bone phase ratios of c n commonly used as an indicator of bone preservation were also measured here modern bones and bone collagen showed 230 th activity at background levels confirming their recent age u series and radiocarbon methods applied to collagen extracted from fossil bone of ursus spelaeus collected in magurska cave tatra mts poland gave consistent results analyses of collagen extracted from bones collected in bi nik cave krakow wielun upland poland indicate that there is a high risk of contamination by modern material especially when working with large samples close to the dating method limit

simulating soil organic carbon in yedoma deposits during the last glacial maximum in a land surface model substantial quantities of organic carbon oc are stored in the thick ice rich and organic rich sediments called yedoma deposits distributed in eastern siberia and alaska today quantifying yedoma carbon stocks during the glacial period is important for understanding how much carbon could have been decomposed during the last deglaciation yet processes that yield the formation of thick frozen oc in yedoma deposits are missing in global carbon cycle models here we incorporate sedimentation parameterizations into the organizing carbon and hydrology in dynamic ecosystems orchidee mict land surface model which leads to reasonable results in oc vertical distribution and regional budgets compared with site specific observations and inventories for today s nondegraded yedoma region simulated total soil oc stock for the northern permafrost region during the last glacial maximum lgm is 1536 1592 pg c of which 390 446 pg c is within today s yedoma region this result is an underestimation since we did not account for the potentially much larger yedoma area during the lgm than the present day

a new approach for reconstructing holocene temperatures from a multi species long chain alkenone record from lake qinghai on the northeastern tibetan plateau abstract the extent of unsaturation in long chain alkenones lcks in lakes has potential for quantitatively indicating paleotemperature in terrigenous environments however the traditional temperature proxies derived from marine lcks may not be able to address the problem related to the prevalent species effect which restricts the application of lcks in lacustrine studies in our lck record from the northeastern tibetan plateau c 37 c 38 differences revealed that the lck producer species in lake qinghai may have changed during the holocene this possible species effect may have caused inconsistency between the u k 37 and u k 37 records therefore we formulated a new proxy u ks 37 with a parameter s to indicate the different exponential response in lck unsaturation to temperature change in multiple species our u ks 37 derived temperature time series resembles the general temperature trends of the northern hemisphere on a millennial scale while exhibiting several apparent cold events especially at ca 9 ka the result shows that the holocene optimum in lake qinghai was interrupted by cold events in the early holocene this could be a result of a weak asia summer monsoon and cold air transmission in the north atlantic

stable isotope analysis of archaeological faunal remains from southern ontario abstract bone collagen from animals consumed by humans during the early historic period in southern ontario was analysed for stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen previous research on stable isotopes for the reconstruction of human paleodiet has focused on determination of c 3 versus c 4 plants in the diet reliance on marine versus terrestrial resources and differentiation of trophic level results of this study indicate that of the animals consumed by humans only domestic dogs and one species of fish had 13 c values heavy enough to cause an increase in human 13 c values nitrogen isotope results show that great lakes fish have very high 15 n values this explains in part the high 15 n values observed in prehistoric and early historic humans from ontario the contribution of animal protein to human stable isotope values has important implications for the interpretation of paleodiet studies as applied to prehistoric adaptation

pre screening techniques for identification of samples suitable for radiocarbon dating of poorly preserved bones under certain environmental conditions post depositional diagenetic loss of bone collagen can severely reduce the number of bones from a particular archaeological site that are suitable for stable isotopic analysis or radiocarbon dating this study examined nearly 300 bones from 12 archaeological sites across southern england known to yield poor or variable preservation to try to identify one or more pre screening technique s that would indicate suitable collagen preservation for radiocarbon dating the most reliable method was shown to be the percent nitrogen n of whole bone powder which has an 84 chance of successfully predicting whether or not a bone will yield sufficient i e 1 weight collagen for dating

hand held raman spectroscopy as a pre screening tool for archaeological bone abstract bone collagen is the required substrate for a variety of archaeometric analyses including radiocarbon dating stable isotope analysis proteomics and ancient dna sampling of bone for such analyses is however a destructive process and biomolecular extraction is a time labor and capital intensive process as such the ability to pre screen bone for potential collagen level in the field or in remote museums storage repositories or other deployed and austere environments for archaeological and forensic purposes is highly desirable building on previous assessments of hand held spectroscopic tools and several recent bench top raman studies and using a robust selection of well characterized ancient bone samples it is demonstrated here that rapid 30 s non destructive assessment by means of 1064 nm raman spectroscopy can provide a field deployable means by which to quantify bone collagen content specifically it was found that the 1450 cm 1 to 960 cm 1 peak height ratio can provide quantitative estimates of bone collagen content with an error of 2 8 wt and those samples with ratios of greater than 0 1 are uniformly suitable for analysis hand held raman spectroscopic technology has therefore evolved to the point where field deployment by archaeologists and forensic scientists would be both justified and worthwhile

molecular preservation and crystallographic alterations in a weathering sequence of wildebeest bones abstract the changes that occur in bone after the death of an animal are important because they control whether the bone becomes a fossil and what information is retained concerning the original biology of the animal taphonomic study of two 10 year longitudinal samples of wildebeest bones subjected to natural weathering in amboseli park kenya provides evidence for progressive change in both the organic and inorganic components of mammalian bone these changes correspond to weathering stages described on macroscopic structural features the bone samples were subjected to well established techniques of protein extraction from mineralized tissue protein identification by gel electrophoresis and reactivity to antibodies of noncollagenous proteins as well as x ray defractometry of the mineral component both adult and juvenile bones show progressive increase in hydroxyapatite crystal size and increased protein degradation over the 10 year period noncollagenous proteins persist at their original molecular weight in diminished amounts relative to modern controls in the study area 10 years or less of natural surface weathering altered the extractability of collagen indicating peptide and crosslinking cleavage in this protein increased hydroxyapatite crystal size may reflect a tendency of crystals to enlarge in situ once the organic matrix begins to breakdown without the addition of external minerals

hydroclimatic changes in china and surroundings during the medieval climate anomaly and little ice age spatial patterns and possible mechanisms abstract investigating hydroclimatic changes during key periods such as the medieval climate anomaly mca 1000 1300 ad and the little ice age lia 1400 1900 ad is of fundamental importance for quantifying the responses of precipitation to greenhouse gas induced warming on regional and global scales this study synthesizes the most up to date and comprehensive proxy moisture precipitation records during the past 1000 years in china and surroundings the proxy data collected include 34 records from arid central asia aca and 37 records from monsoonal asia our results demonstrate a pattern of generally coherent regional moisture variations during the mca and lia in mid latitude asia north of 30 n monsoonal northern china north china and northeast china was generally wetter while aca northwest china and central asia was generally drier during the mca than in the lia a west east mode the boundary between wetter northern china and drier aca was roughly consistent with the modern summer monsoon boundary in monsoonal china to the east of 105 e the northern part was generally wetter while the southern part was generally drier during the mca than in the lia a north south mode with a boundary roughly along the huai river at about 34 n these spatial patterns of moisture precipitation variations are also identified by instrumental data during the past 50 years in order to understand the possible mechanisms related to the moisture variations during the mca and lia we investigate the major sst and atmospheric modes e g the el nino southern oscillation enso the atlantic multidecadal oscillation amo and the north atlantic oscillation nao which affect the moisture precipitation variations in the study region using both the instrumental data and the reconstructed time series it is found that the enso may play an important role in determining hydroclimatic variability over china and surroundings on a multi centennial time scale and that the foregoing spatial patterns could be attributed to the la nina like el nino like condition during the mca lia in addition amo and nao may also have their own contributions

late holocene isotope hydrology of lake qinghai ne tibetan plateau effective moisture variability and atmospheric circulation changes a sub centennial resolution record of lacustrine carbonate oxygen isotopes 18oc from the closed basin lake qinghai on the ne tibetan plateau shows pronounced variability over the past 1500 years changes in 18oc in hydrologically closed lakes are often interpreted in terms of changing effective moisture under this interpretation our record would imply increasing effective moisture during the little ice age lia compared to the medieval warm period mwp however independent evidence from other archives strongly suggests the asian summer monsoon was stronger during the mwp and weakened during the lia controls other than effective moisture the balance of water inputs over evaporative loss must therefore have contributed to the 18oc values we propose the lia signal in lake qinghai resulted from a reduction in evaporation caused by colder air temperatures coupled with a decrease in oxygen isotope composition of input waters as a result of an increase in the relative importance of westerly derived precipitation our results caution against simplistic interpretations of carbonate oxygen isotope records from hydrologically closed lakes and suggest all possible controlling factors must be taken into account in order to avoid misleading palaeoclimatic reconstructions

mis 3 mammoth remains from sweden implications for faunal history palaeoclimate and glaciation chronology the distribution of low arctic megafaunal remains in time and space from the area previously covered by the scandinavian ice sheet sis suggests the presence of breeding mammoth populations in the circum baltic region during the time interval from 44 to 26 ka ago the transport history of 30 mammoth teeth and bones from southern and north central sweden was estimated and the remains were subjected to osteological analyses and 14c dating oxygen isotope analyses of tooth enamel indicate a palaeoclimate considerably more homogenous than that experienced in sweden today showing moderate north south gradients in the d18o value of precipitation and temperature in general the results support the model of restricted ice sheet distribution during the second half of the middle weichselian the clear discrepancy in the inferred absence of glaciation in the central swedish uplands and the baltic basin as evidenced by the swedish mammoth data versus the danish osl based glaciation chronology in the period from 40 to 30 ka ago is discussed in the light of radiocarbon calibration and glacial dynamics r 2007 published by elsevier ltd less

petrous bone diagenesis a multi analytical approach abstract the discovery of petrous bone as an excellent repository for ancient biomolecules has been a turning point in biomolecular archaeology especially in adna research but excessive and uncontrolled sampling could result in loss of this valuable resource for future research this study reports on the histological optical microscopy physical ftir atr elemental chn and biochemical collagen and dna analysis preservation of 15 human petrous bones spanning from the c 2100 bce to 1850 ce through the combined application of a number of diagenetic parameters general histological index infrared splitting factor carbonate phosphate ratio amide phosphate ratio col wt c n and c n of whole bone and collagen endogenous dna we provide new insights into petrous bone micromorphological characteristics and diagenesis and new evidence to enhance screening practices for adna and collagen analysis

stable carbon isotope assessment of hunter gatherermobility in prehistoric south australia bone collagen stable carbon isotope values for the inland riverine roonka flat archaeological population of southeastern south australia indicate that prehistoric aboriginal diets were based on local q derived terrestrial foods throughout the late holocene whereas 91 of the sample had values indicative of a predominantly based terrestrial diet 6 13c 20 0 0 n 41 the remaining 9 had values indicating a mixed diet of c and ca derived terrestrial foods and marine foods x 6 16 1 0 n 4 there were no significant differences between mean 6 13c values for adult males adult females and subadults these bone collagen 6 13c values suggest that there was limited hunter gatherer mobility between the inland riverine site and adjacent coastal and arid interior habitats during the late holocene bone collagen stable carbon isotope comparisons with the early holocene roonka flat population could not be made due to extensive collagen degradation in these older interments

new data on changes in the european distribution of the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros during the second half of the late pleistocene and the early holocene the paleofauna database developed by the authors contains information on more than 5500 eurasian localities that yielded late pleistocene and holocene mammalian fossils the database is used to analyze the changes in the geographical distribution during the second half of the late pleistocene and the holocene of two significant species e the mammoth mammuthus primigenius and the woolly rhinoceros coelodonta antiquitatis based on the geographical information combined with new radiocarbon data a correlation has been established between the observed shifts in the ranges of the two species and the climatic changes that occurred during the past 50 000 years the results indicate that both species changed their distribution repeatedly the expansion of the ranges increased during stadial intervals and decreased during most interstadials both species reached their maximum expansion during the denekamp bryansk interstadial a relatively long interval that includes a number of cold phases later the ranges in europe of both mammoth and rhinoceros were reduced a process that started before the end of the lgm progressive warming from the end of the pleistocene onwards resulted in dramatic changes in the environment that appeared to be critical for the distribution of those animals mammoth and woolly rhinoceros ranges disintegrated into isolated spots and later they disappeared completely from eurasia relict populations of small mammoths persisted longer on isolated islands such as wrangel island however not only climate change had an impact on the distribution of the two species late paleolithic and mesolithic hunters might also have affected the size of the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros populations their impact was probably particularly high when the species were close to extinction

large volume phreatomagmatic ignimbrites from the colli albani volcano middle pleistocene italy abstract in this paper we describe four large volume ash and accretionary lapilli rich phreatomagmatic compound ignimbrite units mafic in composition from colli albani volcano south of rome the four units that form the pisolitic tuffs succession are separated by paleosols and represent the earliest explosive large volume eruptive episodes from the quaternary alban hills volcano the occurrence of large volume phreatomagmatic phreatoplinian eruptions implies the availability of large quantities of water interacting with the rising magma the paleogeography of the area below the volcano has been reconstructed by the analysis of stratigraphic data from more than a thousand bore holes distributed around the volcano that allowed to identify nw trending and ne trending paleotopographic lows that underlie the central area of the volcano and interpreted as extensional tectonic basins these lows are filled with lower to middle pleistocene pre volcanic lacustrine and fluvial deposits and suggest that at least the central part of the colli albani volcanic area hosted a large lake or lagoon the absence of sedimentary xenoliths in the pisolitic tuffs and the low vesicularity of scoria and shards suggest that water interacted with a poorly fragmented magma at very shallow level triggering the large explosivity of the eruptions we suggest that water interacting with magma was mostly surficial water related to the presence of the lagoon or lake in this environment it is likely that vents were subaqueous allowing a continuous access of water to the conduit considering that the minimum calculated volume of products for the pisolitic tuffs succession is 37 km3 and each eruption unit averages approximately around minimum volume of 10 km3 we suggest that each eruption was related to a caldera collapse which would have allowed the persistence of a taupo like lake in the central area and of phreatoplinian activity after the last phreatomagmatic eruption however the fragmentation style of large volume ignimbrites from colli albani became magmatic suggesting the extinction of the lake after that date each of the four units show a basal phreatoplinian fallout level overlain by a complex association of low aspect ratio surge deposits and ignimbrites phreatomagmatic pyroclastic flow deposits are found at distances of more than 40 km from the central area of the volcano and show important facies variation according to the paleotopography to the west of the volcano pyroclastic flows reached the tyrrhenian coast and emplaced mostly stratified facies on a flat topography interpreted to reflect both the spreading of pyroclastic flows on an unconfined topography and their interaction with lacustrine and lagoon areas by contrast to the east of the volcano where pyroclastic flows were confined within paleovalleys the main facies is thick and massive

occurrence of extended chain length c41 and c42 alkenones in hypersaline lakes the chain length of long chain alkenones lcas in ocean and lake sediments commonly ranges from c 37 to c 39 alkenones c 40 are extremely rare c 41 and c 42 alkenones have only been reported in a cretaceous black shale cenomanian ca 95 ma from the blake bahama basin western north atlantic dsdp leg 76 site 534 the significance of these exceptionally long chain alkenones is however unclear we have conducted a systematic survey of lcas in surface sediments from 12 lakes with a wide range of salinity 0 7 146 3 g l from arid northwestern china they showed a general trend of increasing maximum chain length with increasing salinity in particular c 41 and c 42 lcas occurred only in the surface sediments of hypersaline lakes 113 6 146 3 g l but were absent from lakes with lower salinity indicating that these compounds may be produced by an unknown haptophyte species living in hypersaline environments c 2014 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

decadal multi decadal temperature discrepancies along the eastern margin of the tibetan plateau abstract knowledge of the synchronicity and discrepancy of temperature variations along the eastern margin of the tibetan plateau etp is critical in understanding the driving forcing of regional temperature variations in this study we established 15 n timeseries in organic matter and 13 c timeseries in ostracod shells from sediments of lake lugu and attributed their variations to decadal multi decadal temperature variations we compared temperature variations along the etp transect during the past four centuries based on our presently developed and previously developed temperature proxy indices as well as temperature variations reconstructed by other researchers we found that 1 over the north etp area n etp the decadal multi decadal variations in temperature correlate well with each other 2 over the south etp area s etp temperature variations correlate not so well with each other while those at south to west portion of the tibetan plateau are rather local 3 the decadal variations in temperature are generally synchronous with those in precipitation over the n etp area and they are broadly anti phase out of phase with the corresponding ones over the s etp area 4 the long term temperature and precipitation trends are coupling over the n etp but decoupling over the s etp we speculate that because the n etp is located at the frontier of the asian summer monsoon asm region temperature variations there are not as strongly influenced by the asm they are most likely dominated by changes in solar activities and show general similarity to the average of the northern hemisphere over the s etp area decadal temperature variations are obviously influenced by precipitation because the decadal multi decadal precipitation variations are anti phase and or out of phase between the n etp and s etp the decadal multi decadal temperature variations between these two regions are also anti phase and or out of phase

isotopic reconstruction of past continental environments abstract vertebrate fossils and continental sediments provide a rich record of variations in the isotopic composition of surface environments to interpret these records a greater understanding of isotopic sources as well as fractionations associated with animal physiology soil geochemistry and diagenesis has been essential tooth enamel and fish otoliths yield subannual records of surface environments whereas soil minerals may integrate signals over many thousands of years carbon isotope variations in fossil vertebrates and soils record changes in the structure of vegetation and the isotope composition and concentration of atmospheric co2 oxygen isotope variations may be indirectly related to climate through reconstruction of the oxygen isotope composition of meteoric water or directly related to temperature through application of oxygen isotope paleothermometry to soil minerals or otoliths in africa nitrogen isotope variations show promise as a proxy for rainfall abundance though the gen

filling the gaps late upper palaeolithic settlement in gvardjilas klde georgia abstract the paper presents the newly established radiocarbon dates of the late upper palaeolithic lup settlement in gvardjilas klde in the imereti region in georgia the analysed samples were collected by stefan krukowski in 1916 during his fieldwork in the cave krukowski identified two separate up cultural horizons the older one was connected with what he called layer 10 and the younger one with layer 11 the obtained radiocarbon dates confirm the results obtained by krukowski the older settlement phase can be dated to 19 7 18 8 ky cal bp while the younger one to 15 8 14 7 ky cal bp the end of human occupation can be linked to the beginning of the holocene interestingly the presented probability density models show that gvardjilas klde was occupied interchangeably with other sites in the region there is no other site in the imereti region with chronology similar to any of the settlement phases in gvardjilas klde the only chronologically corresponding sites are mezmaiskaya cave and badynoko rockshelter in the northern caucasus

a review of molecular organic proxies for examining modern and ancient lacustrine environments molecular organic geochemical proxies are increasingly being utilized to reconstruct past environmental conditions as new tools continue to be discovered and developed to date organic geochemical proxies have been developed mainly for use in marine systems and are widely used in paleoceanography in contrast organic proxies have been less commonly used on lacustrine sedimentary records one reason for this is that the wide range in the physical and chemical properties of lakes complicates application of some organic geochemical proxies in lacustrine settings furthermore in comparison to marine studies presently only a small number of studies have conducted or are currently conducting fundamental research aimed at developing organic geochemical proxies for use in lacustrine settings despite this an increasing number of paleo limnological studies are currently applying organic geochemical techniques to examine present and past environmental conditions in this manuscript we review the use of a number of commonly utilized organic geochemical and isotopic proxies and discuss their potential for environmental reconstruction in quaternary lacustrine deposits

variability of bone preservation in a confined environment the case of the catacomb of sts peter and marcellinus rome italy most of the studies investigating the diagenetic trajectory of fossil bones focus on open air sites and very little work have been published in confined environments such as catacombs while the stable thermal history of catacombs should favor bone preservation the accumulation of corpses over a short period of time could favor their destruction the aim of this study is to describe the diagenetic trajectory of 128 human bone samples coming from six different burial chambers of the catacomb of sts peter and marcellinus sspm rome italy a multi proxy approach was undertaken to provide an assessment of the molecular preservation as well as a direct record of the isotopic composition itself collagen yield carbon and nitrogen abundances c n ratio ft ir based collagen and carbonate contents and crystallinity index radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis of bone collagen and carbonate indicate that both the mineral and the organic fractions are impacted by diagenesis to various degrees and that bones originating from the small burial chambers are more affected than those coming from the large ones while some of the bones were strongly recrystallized the impact of bone diagenesis on the stable isotope values of bone carbonate was limited comparison with contemporary sites from the latium showed that conditions prevailing in catacombs seem overall to favor rather than disadvantage bone preservation

timing and causes of mid holocene mammoth extinction on st paul island alaska relict woolly mammoth mammuthus primigenius populations survived on several small beringian islands for thousands of years after mainland populations went extinct here we present multiproxy paleoenvironmental records to investigate the timing causes and consequences of mammoth disappearance from st paul island alaska five independent indicators of extinction show that mammoths survived on st paul until 5 600 100 y ago vegetation composition remained stable during the extinction window and there is no evidence of human presence on the island before 1787 ce suggesting that these factors were not extinction drivers instead the extinction coincided with declining freshwater resources and drier climates between 7 850 and 5 600 y ago as inferred from sedimentary magnetic susceptibility oxygen isotopes and diatom and cladoceran assemblages in a sediment core from a freshwater lake on the island and stable nitrogen isotopes from mammoth remains contrary to other extinction models for the st paul mammoth population this evidence indicates that this mammoth population died out because of the synergistic effects of shrinking island area and freshwater scarcity caused by rising sea levels and regional climate change degradation of water quality by intensified mammoth activity around the lake likely exacerbated the situation the st paul mammoth demise is now one of the best dated prehistoric extinctions highlighting freshwater limitation as an overlooked extinction driver and underscoring the vulnerability of small island populations to environmental change even in the absence of human influence

palaeoenvironments during the period of the neanderthals settlement in chagyrskaya cave altai mountains russia abstract the altai mountains situated in the middle of asia have been inhabited by human groups since prehistoric times many middle palaeolithic sites open air sites and caves are located in the northwestern part of the altai mountains the uniqueness of this area is in the simultaneous habitation of different human species such as neanderthals sapiens and denisovians the material culture of the altai middle palaeolithic is mostly homogeneous however two caves are distinguished from other sites okladnikov cave and the recently studied chagyrskaya cave located in the charysh river valley palaeolithic assemblages from both caves are comparable with the mousterian industries recorded in certain regions of eurasia and represent a special variant of the altai middle palaeolithic industries known as the sibiryachikha facies anthropological data from these caves suggest that the sibiryachikha variant was associated with neanderthals in this study we reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental conditions of the period of the neanderthals settlement in the northwestern part of the altai mountains based on bioproxies such as pollen records and large mammal remains the time of the neanderthals settlement of chagyrskaya cave is attributed to the termination of mis4 and is characterised by an arid and continental climate dry steppe communities were widespread in the charysh river valley it is possible that the chagyrskaya cave represents a long term hunting camp where butchering and processing of game animals were carried out in the following warmer and more humid period the neanderthals left the cave this was around the same time when anatomically modern humans began appearing in western siberia

preparation and characterization of bone and tooth collagen for isotopic analysis abstract criteria are presented for the identification of diagenetic alteration of carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of bone and tooth collagen prepared by a widely used method measurements of collagen concentrations in tooth and bone atomic c n ratios and carbon and nitrogen concentrations in collagen of 359 historic and prehistoric african humans and modern and prehistoric east african non human mammals are described carbon isotope ratios of collagen lipids from four bones are also presented compared to bone whole teeth have significantly lower collagen concentrations lower carbon and nitrogen concentrations in collagen and similar c n ratios carbon and nitrogen concentrations and c n ratios are relatively constant over a wide range of collagen concentrations however prehistoric specimens with very low collagen concentrations have highly variable c n ratios very low carbon and nitrogen concentrations in collagen and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios unlike collagen at the transition from well preserved to poorly preserved collagen the most reliable indicator of collagen preservation is the concentration of carbon and nitrogen in collagen concentrations of c and n drop abruptly by an order of magnitude at this transition point these attributes provide simple criteria for assessing sample quality since collagen preservation can vary greatly within prehistoric sites these attributes should be reported for each specimen use of purification procedures that remove acid and base soluble contaminants and particulate matter carbonates fulvic acids lipids humic acids sediments and rootlets are recommended wider adoption of these procedures would insure comparability of results between laboratories and permit independent and objective evaluation of sample preservation and more precise dietary climatic and habitat interpretations of collagen isotopic analyses

sulphur isotopic variation in ancient bone collagen from europe implications for human palaeodiet residence mobility and modern pollutant studies we report here on the first measurements of 34s in small 10 mg samples of ancient bone collagen extracted from humans n 23 and animals n 4 from various european archaeological sites measurement of 34s values complement collagen 13c and 15n measurements and can provide corroboratory palaeodietary insights or new locality information in areas where there are clear 34s differences between marine freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems they can be used to infer the consumption of foods from these systems also as collagen 34s values reflect local environment 34s values they can be used to identify the region where an individual normally resides and therefore identify migratory individuals modern animal bone collagen 34s values were also measured n 7 and it was observed that such values may be confounded by modern sulphur pollutants and we propose that archaeological material which is free from modern sulphur pollutants would provide appropriate baseline material for ecosystem studies

the history of the monti sabatini and alban hills volcanoes groundwork for assessing volcanic tectonic hazards for rome abstract the volcanic rocks of rome provide chronostratigraphic constraint that is of use to geologists archaeologists and paleontologists identifying the areal distribution of these rocks their mode of emplacement and a detailed chronology of the eruptive events also is crucial for assessing local natural hazards in a volcanic tectonic context and for recognizing whether the volcanoes may erupt again in the future we have identified and dated many of the volumetrically significant eruptive units from the monti sabatini and alban hills colli albani and propose a formalized volcanic stratigraphy for rome it is probable that seismic events triggered some eruptions as several ignimbrites from the two volcanoes have statistically indistinguishable ages following a 200 kyr period of dormancy that was coincident with a pulse of regional uplift the alban hills appears to have begun recently circa 45 ka a new eruptive cycle therefore accurate assessment of volcanic tectonic hazards and estimation of possible future volcanic activity is necessary for the safety of the five million people living near these volcanoes

water depth affecting thaumarchaeol production in lake qinghai northeastern qinghai tibetan plateau implications for paleo lake levels and paleoclimate abstract archaeal glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers gdgts are increasingly popular and versatile tool for palaeolimnology studies but their applications in paleohydrology are scarce especially for thaumarchaeol which is specific for the newly proposed phylum thaumarchaeota after investigating our published gdgt data of lake qinghai we found that both the concentration of thaumarchaeol and the relative abundance of thaumarchaeol to total archaeal gdgts thaum in core top sediments increased significantly with increasing water depth r 0 88 and 0 95 respectively with lower concentrations of 5 5 ng g in shallow areas water depth 10 m this is likely because that the producers of thaumarchaeol thaumarchaeota prefer living in the relative deeper zone in lacustrine systems where probably both competition of ammonium the substrate from other microbes and light intensity are low therefore we proposed that thaumarchaeol was mainly produced in situ and changes in thaum might reflect water depth variations in this closed basin lake the application of thaum as a water depth indicator in a holocene sediment sequence of core qh 2011 provided a high resolution relative lake level history of lake qinghai which resembles that inferred from the 13corg value obtained in the same core this supports the use of thaum as an indicator of lake water depth in paleohydrology studies especially for medium lakes moreover the records of the two independent proxies in core qh 2011 confirmed a shallow lake qinghai in the early holocene and a late holocene highstand highlighting the importance of local temperature and evaporation loss in controlling effective moisture in the arid semi arid region

strontium isotopic composition in late pleistocene mammal bones from the yakutian region north eastern siberia abstract isotopic strontium composition of several bones for which 14 c data are available retrieved from latest pleistocene deposits of the yakutian region has been analysed three different groups have been detected corresponding to samples from great maritime yana indigirka interfluve kolymian lowland lowlands covered by thick pleistocene sediments from areas where palaeozoic and precambrian complex and mesozoic granites crop out and from arctic coasts and siberian islands preliminary results highlight the difficulty in discriminating among resident temporary migrant or long distance newcomers if the sampling is not consistent taking into account global changes of sea level the laptev sea shelf was mainly drained during the sea level lowering in the late pleistocene herbivores and especially mammoths did not utilise this shelf pastures therefore the results pose several questions what is the reason for herbivores not visiting the shelf was the shelf occupied by other mammal populations whose remains lie on the sea bottom was the territory too boggy for large animals why did mammals prefer vegetation from inland over shelf landscapes the ongoing research might clarify some issues

the radiocarbon dating of bone abstract diagenetic changes in bone are liable to cause erroneous radiocarbon dates on bone because of the mixing of sample and environment c atoms they can bring about likewise radiocarbon dating can provide information on the extent of such mixing the processes involved which may mix chemically physically or biologically the c atoms of the sample are outlined and the methods used in practice to reverse this mixing are described the most suitable methods depend on the state of preservation of the bone the type of environment and the radiocarbon content bones are classified according to different categories and the appropriate methods indicated for each category it is clear that the more difficult cases are at present not reliably dated and must await a better understanding of the chemistry of diagenesis

the latest woolly mammoths mammuthus primigenius blumenbach in europe and asia a review of the current evidence abstract during the last cold stage woolly mammoths ranged very widely across northern eurasia into north america but then disappeared as part of the global phenomenon of late quaternary megafaunal extinction the timing and causes of this highly significant event have generated conflicting opinions and much debate however the overriding need is for more data and recent years have seen the accumulation of significant new finds and radiocarbon dating evidence in particular research is currently focussing on the geographical pattern of extirpation leading to final extinction rather than seeking a single last appearance datum this viewpoint article was commissioned by the editor in chief and is published following the paper by lougas et al dating the extinction of european mammoths new evidence from estonia quat sci rev 21 2002 1347 to place their finding in a wider context we give a brief review of the youngest directly dated mammoth remains from different regions of eurasia based both on published sources and on our own current research this includes a very important new record from cherepovets north russian plain which together with the new date from puurmani estonia indicates the persistence of mammoth in this region close to the pleistocene holocene boundary these and other records suggest that the previous picture of mammoths widespread before 12 000 ka bp uncalibrated radiocarbon years ago then restricted to limited areas of northern siberia although correct in outline has important exceptions which modify our understanding of mammoth extinction despite the many available radiocarbon dates for eurasian mammoth relative to other extinct megafauna it is apparent that much more work is needed only then can we adequately tackle the important question of the cause or causes of extinction whether by climatic environmental change or overkill by human hunters

first record of the extinct ground sloth megalonyx jeffersonii xenarthra megalonychidae from new york and contributions to its paleoecology abstract the first record of the jefferson ground sloth megalonyx jeffersonii in new york is reported the specimen consists of a partial synsacrum recovered from a peat deposit near newburgh orange county compared to other synsacra of megalonyx the number of vertebrae is anomalous with one less caudal vertebra than expected stable isotope analysis of the bone shows a 13c value of 20 5 and implies a diet of only c3 plants the specimen has a radiocarbon date of 11 450 55 bp indicating the presence of this taxon in the region immediately prior to the extinction of the north american pleistocene megafauna

collagen stable isotopes provide insights into the end of the mammoth steppe in the central east european plains during the epigravettian higher 15 n values in bone collagen of mammoth mammuthus primigenius compared with coeval large herbivores is a classic trait of the mammoth steppe an exception applies to the epigravettian site of mezhyrich ca 18 17 4 ka cal bp in the central east european plains where mammoth bones have 15 n values equivalent to or in a lower range than those of horse specimens equus sp we expanded our preliminary dataset to a larger sampling size of mammoth other large herbivores and carnivores from contemporaneous and nearby sites of buzhanka 2 eliseevichi and yudinovo the unusual low mammoth 15 n values were confirmed at buzhanka 2 and for some specimens from eliseevichi while most individuals from yudinovo displayed the expected high 15 n values meaning similar to those of the large canids the possibility of a contrast in migration pattern is not supported since the 34 s values a marker of mobility do not correlate with the 15 n values of mammoth bone collagen no clear chronological tendency could be revealed at least not at the scale of radiocarbon dating the low range in 15 n values is likely to reflect a change in the specific niche of the mammoth in the southern part of its distribution

rancho la brea stable isotope biogeochemistry and its implications for the palaeoecology of late pleistocene coastal southern california abstract we sampled 143 individuals from rancho la brea rlb large faunal collections for bone collagen stable carbon 13c and nitrogen 15n isotope ratios these collections were recovered from asphalt seeps in the los angeles basin california usa and date from 40 to 12 ka our findings indicate that despite a slight reduction in collagen nitrogen content rlb skeletal remains are relatively well preserved and most yield proteins diagnostic of diet herbivore 13c and 15n values covary with rumination and are consistent with changes in late pleistocene vegetation reconstructed from pollen profiles we find no evidence for reliance on c4 grasses at rlb despite low atmospheric co2 concentrations carnivore 15n values indicate canis dirus smilodon fatalis and panthera leo atrox competed for similar prey sets and were equally reliant on ruminant and nonruminant prey types the 15n values of mammut americanum indicate partial reliance on vegetation with lower 15n values such as nitrogen fixing taxa distinguishing them from the remainder of the study population a comparison of rlb and european faunal 15n values from the late pleistocene suggests that coastal southern california experienced greater aridity

regional differences in bone collagen δ13c and δ15n of pleistocene mammoths implications for paleoecology of the mammoth steppe in this study we present bone collagen 13c and 15n values from a large set of pleistocene woolly mammoths mammuthus primigenius from siberia alaska and yukon overall results for mammoth specimens from eastern beringia alaska and yukon significantly differ for both 13c and 15n values from those from western beringia northeastern siberia in agreement with palynological entomological and physiographic data from the same regions these isotopic differences strongly imply that the mammoth steppe the extensive ice free region spanning northern eurasia and northwestern north america was ecologically variable along its east west axis to a significant degree prior to the last glacial maximum lgm the high latitude portions of siberia and the russian far east appear to have been colder and more arid than central alaska and yukon which were ecologically more diverse during the lgm itself however isotopic signatures of mammoths from eastern beringia support the argument that this region also experienced an extremely cold and arid climate in terms of overall temporal trend beringia thus went from a condition prior to the lgm of greater ecological variability in the east to one of uniformly cold and dry conditions during the lgm

climate and habitat reconstruction using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of collagen in prehistoric herbivore teeth from kenya stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios have been determined for tooth collagen of 27 prehistoric herbivores from a rock shelter in the central rift valley of kenya collagen samples whose isotope ratios were not altered by diagenesis were identified using several analytical methods during the later holocene when the climate was as dry or drier than at present the isotopic compositions of individual animals are similar to those of modern individuals of the same species during the earlier holocene when the climate was wetter than at present the 15n and 13c values are lower than those for their modern counterparts when diagenetic factors can be discounted and adequate modern comparative data are available stable isotope analysis of herbivore teeth and bones can be used to evaluate prehistoric climate and habitat conditions

environmental influences on rabbit and hare bone isotope abundances implications for paleoenvironmental research abstract palaeoclimatological and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions based on stable isotope analysis of mammalian bone require an understanding of the behavior and physiology of the organism and mandate taxon specific considerations this study assesses the utility of using bone tissue of leporids cottontail rabbits sylvilagus sp and hares lepus sp as paleoenvironmental proxies leporids are globally widespread and commonly found in many archaeological middens in north america with material available in many museum collections we isolated and analyzed bone collagen and carbonate from 135 modern specimens from mexico and southern united states for light element stable isotope values of oxygen nitrogen and carbon stable isotope values were assessed with local ecoregion types for each specimen location and interpolated precipitation humidity and temperature variables reflecting the water acquisition strategies of leporids our results show significant negative correlations of bone 18o values with mean annual precipitation and with relative humidity contrary to expectations neither 13c nor 15n values are strong predictors of moisture variables which may be due to micro scale topographic and environmental variation and selective feeding strategies significant positive correlations are observed for 13c and 15n values with temperature variables our study increases our ability to model past environmental landscapes by considering how behavior ecology and environment interact to result in measured stable isotope values in leporid bones

mesolithic neolithic settlements minino 2 and zamostye 5 in their geo environmental setting upper volga lowland central russia abstract the local landscapes of early mesolithic neolithic settlements within the upper volga outwash plain are reconstructed based on the investigation of the multilayer archaeological sites minino 2 and zamostye 5 moscow district russian forest zone according to former descriptions by the authors vandenberghe et al 2010 regional environments in the different stages of the holocene beginning from the preboreal are considered using pollen data while local landscapes including relief soil vegetation and water regime are reconstructed on the base of sediments fossil soils and macrofossils as preserved in a series of burial pits of different age colonization of the area by hunters fishermen followed the local proglacial lake filling and shallowing at the end of the lateglacial postglacial period about cal 12 0 12 2 ka bp drying landscape inherited sharply undulating topography where elevated dry sites were populated up to a flooding episode between cal 2 5 and 2 8 ka bp or about 850 bc water receded between 1 7 and 1 9 cal ka bp while large scale peat accumulation and wetland expansion began about 650 700 bp during the holocene depressions had been gradually filled with organic deposits reflecting change of hydrological regimes the most significant wetting occurred about cal 5 3 5 4 ka bp soil evolution has proceeded from initial calcareous alkaline soils to leached acid soils and further to peaty soils

a review of the stratigraphy of rome italy according to geochronologically and paleomagnetically constrained aggradational successions glacio eustatic forcing and volcano tectonic processes abstract in this paper we provide a critical review of the studies conducted on the geology of rome since the first half of the 20th century aimed at presenting an updated state of the art on the stratigraphy of this area following this introductory summary we present a complete reconstruction of the geological evolution and the resulting chrono litho stratigraphic setting of the greater area of rome according to a series of works that in the last 20 years have adopted an innovative methodological approach based on the conceptual model of aggradational successions deposited in response to sea level rise during the glacial terminations and on the strict geochronologic constraints to the sedimentary record achieved by paleomagnetic investigation of clay sections and 40ar 39ar dating of interbedded volcanic materials we also present a complete overview on the chronostratigraphy of the two volcanic districts of colli albani and monti sabatini located se and nw of rome respectively that has been achieved integrating the field work with the large number of radiometric ages provided in these years on their eruptive products moreover we propose a revised stratigraphic column to compare the most recent official 1 50 000 and 1 10 000 geologic mapping of rome which is intended as a tool of correlation for an international audience of quaternary scientists to approach the study of this area a detailed discussion of the proposed revisions is also provided as supplementary information to this paper

alkenone distribution in lake van sediment over the last 270 ka influence of temperature and haptophyte species composition abstract fossil long chain alkenones have been used for several decades to reconstruct past ocean surface water temperatures and gained recent interest as a paleotemperature proxy for continental lake settings however factors besides temperature can affect alkenone distributions in haptophyte algae and alkenone compositions can differ between haptophyte species alkenone biosynthesizing haptophyte algae are genetically much more diverse in lakes than in the marine realm and species level variations in alkenone compositions could have implications for alkenone paleothermometry here we performed a paired analysis of alkenone distributions and haptophyte species compositions using ancient dna in up to 270 ka old sediments of lake van in turkey to reveal a possible species effect on fossil alkenone distributions and paleotemperature estimates the same predominant haptophyte in lake van today prevailed also since the last 100 ka however a calibration of alkenone paleotemperature especially in the oldest analyzed intervals is complicated due to a more complex haptophyte species composition predominated by a haptophyte lvhap 6 which is phylogenetically different from sequences recovered from currently existing lakes including lake van and from haptophyte species existing in culture the predominance of lvhap 6 coincided with the presence of alkenone mec38 3 and relatively high mec37 3 4 2 4 and mec38 4 5 ratios 3 0 uk37 index values in the sediment core over the last 270 ka reflect relative changes in past temperature and are additionally linked to haptophyte species composition a sustained period of high salinity as indicated by pore water salinity measurements could potentially have triggered the succession of haptophytes as sources of alkenones in lake van

c and n stable isotope measurements on eurasian fossil mammals 40 000 to 10 000 years bp herbivore physiologies and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction abstract seventy seven specimens of fossil upper pleistocene early holocene woolly mammoth reindeer deer and bison from 17 different locations in eurasia have been measured for the nitrogen and carbon stable isotope composition of their collagen and for the carbon stable isotope composition of bioapatite the aim was 1 to check the existence of differences in n and c isotope ratios between and within different herbivore species mainly between mammoth and reindeer 2 to discuss these data in terms of animal physiology temporal and spatial distribution of animals and effects of climatic changes and 3 to obtain further information about the environmental changes that occurred in that area during the period considered a geographical variation from south west to north east in the 15n and or 13c values of collagen and bioapatite for all the herbivore species is apparent the most negative 13c values and the most positive 15n values being located in the north eastern area this was probably due to a different temperature and water stress on animals and plants and to a different plant availability the differences in 13c 12c and 15n 14n isotope ratios among species are mainly related to different food intake and different metabolic pathways it seems also that the diet of mammoths from north eastern siberia was higher in protein content compared with that of mammoths from the russian plain from this study it is clear that there was a rapid and important change in the amount of precipitation soon after the last glacial maximum the rainfall conditions around 40 000 and 30 000 years bp were probably similar to those existing around 10 000 years bp though lower than those existing after the glacial maximum

late holocene indian summer monsoon precipitation history at lake lugu northwestern yunnan province southwestern china abstract knowledge of late holocene precipitation variability in the northwestern yunnan province is important for understanding the indian summer monsoon ism dynamics in this study we present a proxy record of the ism precipitation history at lake lugu covering the last 2 900 years based on grain size and carbon nitrogen c n ratio in the northwestern yunnan province the results show centennial variations in ism precipitation with two remarkably dry intervals from 750 to 1167 ad and from 1733 ad to the present and two relatively wet intervals from 898 bc to 750 ad and from 1167 to 1733 ad a comparison between the record at lake lugu and the pollen record at lake erhai both in the northwestern yunnan province suggests that dry climate conditions prevailed during the medieval warm period mwp and over the last 100 200 years whereas relatively humid conditions prevailed during the little ice age lia these characteristics are generally similar to those of the climate patterns in extensive areas dominated by the ism e g southwestern southern china southeastern southern tibetan plateau northeastern india himalayas southern oman and equatorial eastern africa but anti phased with the climate patterns in the wide areas dominated by the east asian summer monsoon easm e g northern northeastern china and north central japan we speculate that both the variations in the sea surface temperature sst over the tropical indo pacific ocean the ocean atmosphere coupling processes and the migration of the mean position of the intertropical convergence zone itcz should be responsible for the hydroclimatic contrasts over the asian summer monsoon asm region on centennial timescales during the last 2 000 years

paleoclimatic implications of an 850 year oxygen isotope record from the northern tibetan plateau oxygen isotope records from the sediments of hydrologically closed lakes are commonly interpreted in terms of changing effective precipitation we compare an 850 year long oxygen isotope record derived from ostracode carbonate from the sediments of sugan lake in the northern tibetan plateau with tree ring and ice core evidence for changing temperature precipitation and isotopic composition of the lake s inflow taking into account all of these independent records we show that variations in the carbonate delta o 18 values could not have been the result of varying effective precipitation alone changes in water temperature and in the delta o 18 of source waters also played a significant role where independent records of temperature precipitation or the isotopic composition of input waters are unavailable care should be taken to avoid simplistic interpretations of carbonate stable isotope records as these may contribute to incorrect paleoclimatic reconstructions

carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of northwest european horse bone and tooth collagen 40 000 bp present palaeoclimatic interpretations abstract carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of bone and tooth dentine collagen from 142 horses were analysed to consider the potential of isotopic analysis of faunal remains as a palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic proxy a general trend through time towards lighter 13 c values was observed but with an obvious depletion at the late glacial holocene transition horse 13 c values appear to track plant 13 c although phenomenon such as the canopy effect may influence faunal 13 c values we believe that the influence on plants of increasing atmospheric co 2 is the primary factor in the change in faunal 13 c values at the late glacial holocene transition a post glacial depletion in horse 15 n values is observed in areas proximal to glacial retreat although no data is available in these areas during the last glacial maximum horse 15 n values are presumed to reflect plant 15 n values depleted plant nitrogen may be attributed to a number of factors e g water availability temperature cycling of nitrogen in the soil soil nutrient availability especially phosphorus in the post glacial period and the type of mycorrhizal associations formed with plant these effects may be interrelated and be linked such that a positive feedback can give a non linear response to a single parameter

pollen and macrofossils attributable to fagopyrum in western eurasia prior to the late medieval an intercontinental mystery abstract the widespread perception that buckwheat fagopyrum esculentum and f tataricum did not occur in western eurasia prior to the late medieval is challenged by numerous pollen finds we traced some 240 localities from the area with pollen or macrofossils attributed to fagopyrum in often much earlier time slices this paper evaluates various explanations for these finds within the context of palaecological methods vegetation history and cultural development the clear morphological characteristics make large scale misidentification of the pollen unlikely although some records are suspect contamination is improbable for the vast majority of the pollen diagrams also long distance transport of pollen of fagopyrum snowdenii or oxygonum from africa seems unlikely as the pollen rain of that continent hardly contains that pollen the option that fagopyrum was present in western eurasia already much earlier than the late medieval must therefore be seriously considered cultivated species may have reached the area by trade between the mediterranean and eastern chinese realms which was regular since 2000 bce as the low pollen values argue against large scale cultivation the taxon may merely have occurred as a weed or its pollen was transported with other products and subsequently re emitted the pervasive notion that buckwheat was cultivated on large scale by the scythians in the ukrainian realm since 800 bce is highly ambiguous and probably wrong there are some indications that wild fagopyrum or a related taxon may have occurred widespread in eurasia during the pleistocene glaciations and the early middle holocene i e predating 2000 bce

new evidences about human activities during the first part of the upper pleniglacial in ukraine from zooarchaeological studies abstract the upper pleniglacial between 23 000 20 000 bp is characterized by the intensification of cold climate and is followed by the maximum extent of ice sheets there is a little bit information about the human activities during this period new archaeological excavations in ukraine permit to evidence data about behavioural human adaptations these open air sites are on the one hand pushkari 1 excavation vii pogon excavation vii and obollonia in the desna valley and on the other hand dorochivtsy iii in the dniester valley these sites are characterised by atypical lithic industries made on local flint relied to the gravettian but containing epigravettian or aurignacoid elements in order to better understand the subsistence strategy we carried out zooarchaeological and taphonomical studies which allow us to reveal the strategy of fauna exploitation by the human groups we highlighted that all these sites are characterized by a restricted faunal spectrum with the presence of mammoth reindeer horse and carnivores mainly fox vulpes vulpes and alopex lagopus and wolf in the dniester valley the reindeer was the most exploited whereas the mammoth is the most exploited in the desna valley indeed it was probably hunt in pushkari 1 maybe in pogon and obollonia it was exploited as combustible food resources and bones as raw material in dorochivtsy iii 6 ivory was used to make tools and as artistic support indeed this site and obollonia present grooved ivory points this is the oldest occurrence of this kind of artefacts in the both regions moreover two engraved tusks presenting more or less figurative pictures were found in dorochivtsy iii l 6 and obollonia the other large herbivores were also consumed and carnivores were exploited for their pelts in all these sites the settlements are recurrent camps with little development occupied during varied seasons oriented to hunting and butchering activities linked with exploitation of local flint these sites demonstrate the continuity of human occupations within the eastern european plain with the persistence of hunting methods and the relative diversity of animal exploitation during the upper pleniglacial these sites are really important for the understanding of cultural processes in the eastern european upper palaeolithic and particularly for the understanding of epigravettian origin

carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of bone collagen of large herbivores from the late pleistocene kiputz ix cave site gipuzkoa north iberian peninsula for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction abstract the kiputz ix site records climatic variations during the late pleistocene since it represents a continuous time interval record ca 25 13 ka cal bp carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from the bone collagen of herbivores rangifer tarandus cervus elaphus and bison priscus were analysed to establish environmental and climatic conditions in the northern iberian peninsula faunal distribution over time represents a response to climatic variations showing inverse patterns with reindeer and bison profusion during cold periods and red deer abundance during warmer times the increase in reindeer 15 n values during stadial gs 2 appears to be greater in magnitude than in continental europe and reflects drier warmer climatic conditions the 13 c values of red deer suggest more humid environmental conditions south of the pyrenees during interstadial gs 1 the climatic conditions of southern pyrenees appear to be analogous to that of northern pyrenees regions

landscape climate and mammoth food resources in the east european plain during the late paleolithic epoch abstract typical mammoth inhabited the east european plain during the second half of the late pleistocene glaciation under conditions of extremely arid climate periglacial mostly open landscapes formed a vast hyperzone cryohyperzone that occupied the place of the modern tundra forest and steppe zones to assess the available foodstuffs for mammoth provision data concerning productivity and nutritive value of modern herb and grass vegetation that may be considered as more or less close analogues of periglacial communities can be used the central part of the late pleistocene periglacial hyperzone was most favorable for mammoths those regions were well endowed with water in large rivers as well as snow and ice and presented the richest fodder base because trees and bushes persisted in valleys while higher watersheds were occupied by periglacial steppe climate warming and consequent degradation of permafrost resulted in instability of the land surface thermokarst and expansion of wetlands the snow thickness increased due to more abundant snowfall in winter and made grazing difficult for mammoths the first interstadial warming affected the less hardy early mammoths while the progressive warming towards the holocene appeared fatal to the typical mammoth

palaeoenvironmental and chronological investigations of the magdalenian sites of goyet cave and trou de chaleux belgium via stable isotope and radiocarbon analyses of horse skeletal remains abstract trou de chaleux and goyet are caves situated less than 30 km apart in belgium that contain stratified magdalenian artefacts and butchered faunal remains published radiocarbon dates suggest that both sites were contemporaneously occupied during to the late glacial interstadial it has previously been suggested that the trou de chaleux late glacial faunal remains might be slightly older than those at goyet cave and that trou de chaleux has two phases of occupation during the late glacial interstadial however the limited number of radiocarbon dates currently available makes it impossible to determine whether the sites are truly contemporaneous and the assessment of their absolute chronologies is complicated by a plateau in the calibration curve in this paper bone collagen 13 c and 15 n signatures of horse bones from the two sites are used to reconstruct local palaeoenvironments we hypothesise that if occupations at the two sites were contemporaneous the horse collagen 13 c and 15 n isotope signatures from both sites will be similar since comparable carbon and nitrogen isotopic values would reflect similar diets ecologies and environments to provide clear dating parameters new ams radiocarbon determinations are also presented results show that horse collagen 13 c and 15 n isotope signatures at the two sites are different indicating that the populations were not subject to similar diets ecologies and environments the new radiocarbon dates confirm that the horse bones from trou de chaleux date to the late glacial interstadial but they also show that in goyet cave horizons 1 and 2 older horse remains dating to ca 32 000 27 000 14 c yr bp are mixed with late glacial horse remains the 15 n values of the goyet cave horse bones radiocarbon dated to the pleniglacial are substantially higher than those that have late glacial radiocarbon dates therefore we now hypothesise that the majority of the horse bones isotopically analysed from goyet cave horizon 1 are pleniglacial in age statistical analysis of the radiocarbon dates indicates that the late glacial occupation at the two sites was contemporaneous and that while there may appear to be two phases of occupation at trou de chaleux this may be an artefact of the radiocarbon calibration curve

insights into continental temperatures in the northwestern black sea area during the last glacial period using branched tetraether lipids abstract in the continental realm continuous quantitative temperature reconstructions spanning the last glacial are rare especially in central and eastern europe here we provide a reconstruction from the northwestern black sea catchment spanning 40 to 9 ka bp from a study of the relative distribution of branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers brgdgts in black sea lacustrine sediments first the origins of brgdgts are discussed the comparison of geochemical proxies from the same core supports a dominant terrestrial origin for brgdgts during the last glacial and a strong decrease in the soil derived brgdgt proportion toward the holocene since the lowering of soil vs lacustrine derived brgdgts is prone to bias the temperature signal that is reconstructed using a soil calibration a correction for in situ production is applied the corrected signal is compared to independent discrete temperature records from the study area the brgdgt temperature relative evolution reconstructed in this work provides additional insight regarding millennial scale climate variability in central and eastern europe notably the imprints of heinrich event cold spells and lateglacial climatic oscillations are consistent with other regional paleorecords from the northern hemisphere