This study presents the results of a palynological investigation on a sediment core from the seasonal and saline Lake Maharlou in the Zagros Mountains in southwest Iran. We emphasised studying the role of man in modifying the vegetation of the area and the dominant agricultural practices during the Imperial Persia period (2,500–1,299 cal bp; 550 bc-ad 651), particularly the Achaemenid Empire (2,500–2,280 cal bp; 550–330 bc). Scattered pistachio-almond scrub combined with Quercus brantii was the main vegetation type of the basin during the period studied. The present study depicts a significant increase in agriculture, suggesting urban development during the Late Antiquity and early Islamic Iranian dynasties. The inferred chronology of arboricultural activities is compatible with historical evidence showing that Fars Province witnessed economic and agricultural flourishing during these periods. The presence of the ‘Persian gardens’ is supported by the co-increase of cypress tree pollen frequencies with pollen of other cultivated trees, especially Platanus; both trees were cultivated for their shade and symbolic values. This study also provides pollen evidence of Punica granatum during the Achaemenid period and Phoenix dactylifera cultivation during the early post-Sasanian era. The variations in indicator pollen ratios among Poaceae, Artemisia, and Amaranthaceae appear compatible with the palaeohydrology of the basin and show periods of aridity followed by higher moisture availability. We suggest that anthropogenic activities played the leading role in vegetation change in the Maharlou Lake basin enhanced by climatic changes during the last ~4,000 years.

<p>Seasonally laminated lacustrine sediments of Lake Stadtsee, located in the city of Bad Waldsee (Southern Germany), offer a continuous archive that allows a unique and yearly correlation of sedimentary signals and historic documents since medieval times. Comparison of the economic and environmental history of an urban centre will provide detailed insight into how the history of a city and its periphery region affected lake development and water quality, and how fast water quality and aquatic ecosystem recovered from human impact and activities. An interdisciplinary research team consisting of geologists, biologists, and historians from various universities and institutions has been established and started its work recently. The common goal of the different working groups and disciplines is to investigate temporally highly resolved sediment records of diatom and pollen spectra, geochemical proxies, and sediment facies of profundal sediment cores from Lake Stadtsee and to compare and calibrate these results with historic documents, stock books, archive records, dendrochronology records, and maps. So far, continuous geochemical sediment records of Lake Stadtsee were acquired non-destructively using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) core scanning. These element intensity records of the major elements (e.g. Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Fe) were measured every 2 mm. Sampling and subsequent analyses (e.g. pollen, PAH, isotopes) are ongoing.</p><p>Overall, the environmental impact of socio-economic development for the preindustrial development phase of a city from AD 1200 to 1800 will be assessed for the first time. The research will focus on the effects of population growth or decrease, farming intensity, economic production, trade activity in relation to environmental, and climate change, including catastrophic events such as fires and floods. The results will provide important insights about the response of urban surface waters to changing emissions of the city and the long-term behaviour of persistent pollutants on lakes. The project will thereby contribute to the knowledge of historic human impact on the environment in Germany, pre-medieval reference conditions, and the limits of resilience of aquatic systems. Thus, it will target the past environmental footprint of anthropogenic induced events on urbanized lake ecosystems and help to understand the mechanism behind such processes in the future.</p>