Luminescence dating of eolian and fluvial archives in the Middle and Lower Danube catchment and the paleoenvironmental implications

• Main Author: Bösken, Janina Johanna
• Other Authors: Lehmkuhl, Frank, Brückner, Helmut
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/620; Aurignacian; Carpathian Basin; Lower Danube Basin; OSL; a-value; geochemistry; grain-size; loess-paleosol sequences; post-IR-IRSL; southestern Europe; Tundra
• Online Access: https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/713554; https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-2018-01253%22

The presented doctoral dissertation uses luminescence dating techniques to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic conditions in the Middle and Lower Danube catchments, especially during the period of anatomically modern human emergence. It is embedded in the Collaborative Research Center 806 "Our Way to Europe - Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary". To increase ones understanding of the environmental conditions during the last 150 ka, four loess-paleosol sequences and one fluvial section were investigated. The research area is located at the junction of Atlantic, Mediterranean and continental climatic regimes, which makes it sensitive to climatic changes. Moreover, the geographical position between Asia, Near East and Central Europe and the vast river network connecting these regions, make the area a favorable pathway for anatomically modern human migration. The sediments of the five investigated sites cover various time frames from the penultimate interglacial (MIS 7) to the Holocene. The methodological approach focused on optically stimulated luminescence dating, but for some of the sections the geochronological methods were combined with physical, biological, and geochemical proxy data to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental conditions. In the Middle Danube Basin three sites were investigated. The Ságvár loess-paleosol sequence is located in the central basin and its sediments accumulated during the last glacial maximum from approximately 25 − 17 ka. The sequence can be correlated to two Gravettian occupation layers. Paleoenvironmental conditions changed from short grassland (25 − 24 ka), to a mosaic of mammoth steppe, forest steppe, continental steppe, and tundra (25 − 18 ka), towards continental grassland (< 18 ka). The data indicates that the Gravettian occupation took place during a typically cold LGM phase. The Bodrogkeresztúr loess-paleosol sequence is located in the foothills of the Carpathians in the northern part of the Middle Danube Basin. It is ...