The Sedimentary Records in Mediterranean Rockshelters and Caves: Archives of Environmental Change

• Published in: Geoarchaeology
• Main Authors: Woodward, Jamie C., Goldberg, Paul
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Aks; ice core
• Online Access: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/5eb6a9bc-b435-4a52-a618-083922102803; https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.1007; https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/files/22015582/POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS.PDF

It is important to develop rigorous methods and robust conceptual models for the interpretation of rockshelter and cave sediment records so that the cultural sequences they contain can be considered in their proper environmental context. Much of what we know about the prehistory of the Mediterranean region and adjacent areas has largely been pieced together from materials excavated from sedimentary sequences in these environments. The rockshelters and caves of the region form important environmental and sedimentary archives. Recent work has begun to consider if the remarkable climatic variability evident in the high resolution lacustrine and ice core records is manifest in the rocksheiter and cave sediment records of the area. In this context, the two main characteristics of a rockshelter or cave site which control its usefulness as an archive of environmental change are the temporal resolution of the sedimentary record and the environmental sensitivity of the site. Many rockshelters and caves can be described as either Active Karst Settings (AKS) or Passive Karst Settings (PKS) and site type is an important influence on climatic sensitivity with a direct influence upon the usefulness of the sedimentary sequence as a proxy record of climate change. It is now clear that some sites may preserve detailed paleoclimatic records and the climatic signal may be represented by distinctive suites of micromorphological features, by variations in the input of allogenic sediment, or by fluctuations in the mineral magnetic properties of the fine sediment fraction. It can be argued that data derived from the analysis of bulk coarse-grained samples often lacks the stratigraphic resolution and environmental sensitivity that can be obtained from other approaches. The most favorable sites for detailed paleoclimatic reconstruction appear to be in active karst settings such as Theopetra Cave (Greece) and Pigeon Cave (Morocco) where micromorphological analyses offer insights into the stratigraphic record that are not otherwise ...