An interdisciplinary study of a small sedimentary basin at Neumark Nord 2 (NN2), Germany, has yielded a high-resolution record of the palaeomagnetic Blake Event, which we are able to place at the early part of the last interglacial pollen sequence documented from the same section. We use this data to calculate the duration of this stratigraphically important event at 3400 ± 350 yr. More importantly, the Neumark Nord 2 data enables precise terrestrial–marine correlation for the Eemian stage in central Europe. This shows a remarkably large time lag of ca. 5000 yr between the MIS 5e ‘peak’ in the marine record and the start of the last interglacial in this region.

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Few sites with evidence for fire use are known from the Last Interglacial in Europe. Hearth features are rarely preserved, probably as a result of post-depositional processes. The small postglacial basins (<300 m in diameter) that dominate the sedimentary context of the Eemian record in Europe are high-resolution environmental archives often containing charcoal particles. This case study presents the macroscopic charcoal record of the Neumark-Nord 2 basin, Germany, and the correlation of this record with the distinct find levels of the basin margin that also contain thermally altered archaeological material. Increased charcoal quantities are shown to correspond to phases of hominin presence-a pattern that fits best with recurrent anthropogenic fires within the watershed. This research shows the potential of small basin localities in the reconstruction of local fire histories, where clear archaeological features like hearths are missing.

We analyzed intestinal contents of two late-glacial mastodons preserved in lake sediments in Ohio (Burning Tree mastodon) and Michigan (Heisler mastodon). A multi-proxy suite of macrofossils and microfossils provided unique insights into what these individuals had eaten just before they died and added significantly to knowledge of mastodon diets. We reconstructed the mastodons’ habitats with similar multi-proxy analyses of the embedding lake sediments. Non-pollen palynomorphs, especially spores of coprophilous fungi differentiated intestinal and environmental samples. The Burning Tree mastodon gut sample originates from the small intestine. The Heisler mastodon sample is part of the large intestine to which humans had added clastic material to anchor parts of the carcass under water to cache the meat. Both carcasses had been dismembered, suggesting that the mastodons had been hunted or scavenged, in line with other contemporaneous mastodon finds and the timing of early human incursion into the Midwest. Both mastodons lived in mixed coniferous-deciduous late-glacial forests. They browsed tree leaves and twigs, especially Picea. They also ate sedge-swamp plants and drank the lake water. Our multi-proxy estimates for a spring/summer season of death contrast with autumn estimates derived from prior tusk analyses. We document the recovered fossil remains with photographs.

The past and present occurrence of Elatine hydropiper L. (eight-stamened waterwort), E. hexandra (Lapierre) DC. (six-stamened waterwort) and E. triandra Schkuhr (three-stamened waterwort) in the Netherlands is discussed. It has proved possible to distinguish the slightly curved seeds of E. hexandra and E. triandra in subfossil material on morphological grounds. E. hexandra is the most common species at present, but subfossil finds are confined to Late-glacial and Pre-boreal sediments of one lake in the Pleistocene area of the Netherlands. Living plants of E. triandra have only been found in the Netherlands in 1838-1839, but there are 17 records from five archaeological sites, all located in the western Dutch estuarine area. Several of these sites also yielded E. hydropiper, archaeobotanically the most common species. The occurrence of E. triandra and E. hydropiper in the Netherlands seems to have been favoured by high summer temperatures. The ecological amplitude of this combination of species gives firm clues for the reconstruction of the environment, which must have been a freshwater tidal area. Since this type of environment is strongly threatened on a worldwide scale, the presence of these species in the past may also provide interesting information for present nature development projects in the Dutch estuarine area.