Palaeocladocerans as indicators of environmental, cultural and archaeological developments in Eifel maar lakes region (West Germany) during the Lateglacial and Holocene periods

Abstract

The use of subfossil cladocerans is rare for understanding environmental, cultural and archaeological developments of lakes in Europe. In 2007, we collected a 12-m long sediment core from Lake Schalkenmehrener Maar (SMM), Germany for the analyses of subfossil cladocerans. Dating of core was based on tephrochronology, radiocarbon and pollen stratigraphy. Pollen-based chronostratigraphy indicated a decline of species richness and abundance of chydorids during the Lateglacial (ca. 14500 cal yr bp) with dominant cold preferring taxa Acroperus harpae Baird and Alona affinis Leydig. During the early Bölling, the abundance of cladocerans increased commensurate with growth of birch (Betula L.) and p..