Quaternary Palaeoecology: Major Palaeoecological Problems of Europe

Abstract

It is well known that the former view of three or four Quaternary glacial periods in northern or south-central Europe, respectively, cannot be kept any longer, because much more qualitatively different interglacial vegetation-sequences have since been discovered. Yet the question is how many of these different interglacial periods had existed in reality? The comparison with deep-sea isotope-curves, which is practised repeatedly now, cannot be accepted as a reliable way of argumentation, because firm stratigraphical connections between terrestrial and oceanic sediment sequences are generally lacking. Thus, one has to construct, on the continents, palaeoclimatological, geological and palaeoecological sequences independently from changes in the deep-sea curves of stable isotopes. Another problem is the timing and ways of immigration of the exacting taxa from their glacial refuge areas when at the beginning of interstadial or interglacial periods the climate began to improve. Here, too, the comparison with stable isotope curves of deep-sea foraminifera is of no help, because the dating quality of older deep-sea sediments is restricted. Finally, exact quantification of the palaeoecological consequences of early human activities has rarely been attempted in various regions of Europe. Thus, very often one cannot reliably differentiate between climate and man, both being factors which strongly influenced the palaeoecological situation in various regions of Europe at a very early period.