Possible complexity of the climatic event around 4300—3800 cal. BP in the central and western Mediterranean

Abstract

This paper presents an event stratigraphy based on data documenting lake-level changes as well as volcanic eruptions over the period 4500—3500 cal. BP from sediment sequences of Lakes Accesa in Tuscany (north-central Italy) and Maliq (Albania) in the central Mediterranean. The available data make it possible to recognise a tripartite climatic oscillation between c. 4300—3800 cal. BP. A phase characterised by drier conditions at c. 4100—3950 cal. BP appears to have been bracketed by two phases marked by wetter conditions and dated to c. 4300—4100 and 3950—3850 cal. BP, respectively. The deposition of the Avellino tephra occurred during the first humid phase, slightly before 4300 cal. BP, and that of an interplinian tephra AP2-AP4 (or Pr1) around 4050 cal. BP during the dry intermediate phase. This dry median episode may be related to the so-called ‘4.2 ka event’ observed in tropical areas as well as in northwestern Italy. A comparison of the Accesa lake-level record with palaeoclimatic terrestrial and marine records suggests that this complex climatic oscillation around 4300—3800 cal. BP affected the central and western Mediterranean area. The key position of the 4300—3800 cal. BP climatic oscillation at a crucial transition from mid to late Holocene in the Mediterranean and tropical areas, deserves major consideration in further investigations.

Holocene palaeohydrological changes in the northern Mediterranean borderlands as reflected by the lake-level record of lake ledro, northeastern Italy

“…The late Holocene at Ledro shows strong similarities with paleohydrological changes recognised at Lakes Fucino (Giraudi, 1998) and Mezzano (Giraudi, 2004) as well on the higher Apennine massifs (Giraudi, 2005) and in the Ombrone river delta (Bellotti et al, 2004). As an additional comment for this later period, it is worth noting that the Ledro record confirms the complexity of the tripartite climatic event around 4300-3800 cal yr BP in the central Mediterranean as discussed by Magny et al (2009b).…”

“…orbitally-driven induced changes in summer insolation. However, the abrupt rise in lake levels around 4500 cal yr BP points to the crucial impact of the climatic oscillation around 4500-4000 cal yr BP (Marchant and Hooghiemstra, 2004;Booth et al, 2005;Magny et al, 2009b;Giraudi et al, 2011) in the northwestern Mediterranean area. In the case of Lake Ledro, the marked rise in lake level around 4500 cal yr BP may have been accentuated by human impact due to early and middle Bronze age settlements.…”

A Late Glacial to Holocene record of environmental change from Lake Dojran (Macedonia, Greece)

“…Restricted nutrient availability is less likely, as increasing K and Fe counts imply increasing clastic supply and erosion in the catchment. The short period of low temperatures and arid conditions around 4000 cal yr BP is most likely associated with the 4.2 ka cooling event, which has been described in other records from the Mediterranean region (e.g., Bar-Matthews et al, 1999;Weiss and Bradley, 2001;Magny et al, 2009;Wagner et al, 2009;Vogel et al, 2010a). The 4.2 ka cooling event in the Mediterranean region corresponds to low lake levels in North Africa and the Near East, which is explained by a weak African monsoon (Kotthoff et al, 2008a and references therein;Magny et al, 2009).…”

“…Although several paleoenvironmental records spanning the entire Holocene already exist from the Balkan region (e.g., Bordon et al, 2009;Wagner et al, 2009;Vogel et al, 2010a;, some suffer from poor radiocarbon chronologies (Wagner et al, 2009;Vogel et al, 2010a), or are inconsistent in terms of spatial variability and short-term climate events (Magny et al, 2003(Magny et al, , 2009Tzedakis, 2007;Berger and Guilaine, 2009). Furthermore, significant anthropogenic impact at least since the late Holocene (e.g., Willis, 1994;Wagner et al, 2009;Aufgebauer et al, 2012; complicates the reconstruction of climate change in the Balkan region (Vogel et al, 2010a).…”

Dinámica paleoambiental en la campiña de Córdoba (Andalucía) entre el IV y el I milenios cal. BC . Análisis palinológico del yacimiento arqueológico de Torreparedones

“…Dicho evento ha sido reconocido como una fase de aridificación muy importante en la Penín-sula Ibérica (Burjachs et al, 1997Jalut et al, 1997Jalut et al, , 2000Julià et al, 2000Julià et al, , 2001Fabián García et al, 2006). Magny et al (2009) En la UE 1359 abundan los elementos xeró-filos, estando ausentes los higrófilos, lo que permitiría correlacionarla con la mencionada fase árida ca. 2150-2000 cal.…”