The authors introduce an ongoing project that explores a solution for the long-term preservation of proxies in archaeological and geological sediment cores to protect unique palaeoenvironmental data. To prevent alterations of organic properties and/or fungal growth, the sediment cores are vacuum freeze-dried, allowing long-term storage at 55 per cent relative humidity (RH).Archaeological excavations and palaeoclimate field studies are often costly, long-term and complex endeavours. One strategy is to extract sediment cores to accommodate the requirements of present and future in-depth analyses (Figure 1). This method, however, leaves

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