Five stalagmites from the Demänová Cave System (DCS, Western Carpathians, Slovakia), spanning the period from 13,000 to 500 a BP, were analyzed for their oxygen and carbon stable isotopic composition of the calcite. The isotopic data obtained from several stalagmites located in one cave system allow us to separate the changes of regional/global importance from the local changes. Oxygen isotope ratios point to dynamic changes in the environment at the onset of the Holocene. Despite the local differences, carbon isotope data express the gradual and steady development of vegetation on the surface above the cave from the beginning of the Holocene until 6,000 a BP. The oxygen isotope values in the DCS stalagmites are higher than that derived from the Rayleigh distillation model until approximately 9,000 a BP, suggesting (1) an increase in the isotopic gradient to the east of Europe, probably caused by a different seasonality in precipitation amount or (2) different sources of meteoric water, transported from the Mediterranean and Black Sea region, in Central and Eastern Europe compared to the Western, circum-Atlantic part of the continent. The younger part of the DCS records falls in the range described by the model and points to the increasing role of the westerlies in the determination of the climatic conditions of Central Europe during middle- and late-Holocene.

The SC-3 speleothem from Szczelina Chochołowska Cave, located in the Tatra Mountains, was studied in detail. U-series dating and age–depth modeling allowed us to constrain the period of speleothem growth to between approximately 330 and 200 ka, that is, during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 9–7. The complementary use of stable isotope analyses, petrographic studies, and trace element analyses allowed the identification of warm and wet climatic conditions that were favorable for speleothem growth during MIS 9e and MIS 9c. Unfavorable climatic periods included the cold glacial conditions of MIS 8 and the MIS 9/MIS 8 transition. The breaks in the growth of the SC-3 stalagmite were most likely connected with a reduction in precipitation in MIS 9a and extreme hydrologic events during MIS 8. Comparisons with other European records suggest that the climatic variability recorded in the speleothem from the Tatra Mountains is not only a record of local environmental conditions but can also be linked to European climatic patterns during both interglacial and glacial intervals. This makes our study the northernmost paleoclimatic record for the whole Carpathian range and one of the very few records from those periods worldwide.

The quality of paleoenvironmental reconstruction based on speleothem records depends on the accuracy of the used proxies and the chronology of the studied record. As far as the dating method is concerned, in most cases, the best solution is the use of the U-series method to obtain a precise chronology. However, for older periods (i.e., over 0.5 Ma), dating has become a serious challenge. Theoretically, older materials could be dated with the U-Pb dating method. However, that method requires a relatively high uranium content (minimum of several ppm), whereas typical speleothems from Poland (and all of Central Europe) have uranium concentrations below 0.1 ppm. Because the materials in Polish caves are problematic, we applied oxygen isotope stratigraphy (OIS) as a tool for speleothem dating. By using OIS as an alternative tool to create a chronology of our flowstone, it was found that the studied flowstone crystallized from 975 to 470 ka with three major discontinuities, so obtained isotopic record can be correlated with oxygen isotopic stages from MIS 24 to MIS 12. The observed isotopic variability was also consistent and confirmed with the petrographic observations of the flowstone.