Lateglacial and Holocene environmental history in the area of Samogitian Upland (NW Lithuania)

Abstract

Pollen, plant macroscopic fossil and carbonate analyses supplemented with 14 C dating were applied for sediment sections of Lopaičiai Kettle and Pakastuva Lake. The new data obtained from two sediment cores were used to reconstruct vegetation cover and environmental changes during Lateglacial and Holocene in the Samogitian Upland (NW Lithuania). Different burial conditions of dead-ice blocks caused different times of lake sediment start in studied sites. The depositional and vegetation history is traced at the inception of preAllerød time in sediment section from the Lopaičiai core. However, sediment section from the Pakastuva core provides paleoenvironmental information starting only from the very beginning of Holocene. The study results shed more light on the environmental development during the Lateglacial and Holocene of the specific ice marginal area, which belongs to interlobate insular upland.

Socketed antler toggle harpoon head – a unique hunter­gatherer fishing implement in western Lithuania’s freshwater lake environment

“…Western Lithuania is characterised by a young morainic landscape called the Samogitian Highland (e.g. Kabailienė et al 2015). Wetlands and overgrown lakes are characteristic of this area, which is why in the 20th century, peat cutting, straightening of the riverbeds and drainage of wetlands were undertaken.…”