Environmental history in Western Anatolia (Turkey) since the Last Glacial Maximum

Mediterranean landscapes have been shaped by complex interactions between climate, land use and fire over multi-millennial timescales. Understanding past trajectories of change provides knowledge of how modern landscapes emerged, which can be valuable for their sustainable management. The aim of this study is to reconstruct environmental change in Western Anatolia (Turkey) through palaeoecological analysis of sediment from Buldan Yayla Lake (Denizli-Buldan) from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the present, using a high-resolution and multi-proxy dataset. To this end, fossil pollen, micro-charcoal, non-pollen palynomorphs, micro (μ)-XRF and radiocarbon analyses were applied to an ∼18 m sediment core from Buldan Yayla Lake (Denizli-Buldan). According to the fossil pollen record, forest presence was low during the LGM (21000-18000 cal. BP), with the lowest value recorded at 5 % during this period due to cold and dry climatic condition. Forest presence began to increase with the transition to the Post-LGM period. Rapid forest development and high forest presence were observed in the lake record from the transition to the LGM until the late Holocene. Forest development in Western Anatolia occurred approximately 4,000 years earlier than in Europe according to the age-depth model developed for this record, though if a hiatus exists, this could reflect a shift of at least 1,300 years. High forest abundance during the late Glacial period was interrupted during the Younger Dryas (YD) and during the dry climatic periods of 9250–8900 and 7700 cal. BP. The late Holocene period was characterized by intensive land use, specifically olive cultivation, which reached its highest level in the Roman Imperial Period (during the ancient city of Tripolis era), and the highest olive percentage recorded in Anatolia (38.4 %) was reached. Forests were generally dominated by oaks, with pine forests replacing oak forests in the last 1350 (cal. BP) years. Micro-charcoal and non-pollen palynomorph data were low in concentration between the LGM and Holocene and began to increase with the Holocene transition reaching their highest values during the late Holocene. This study provides a reconstruction of long-term environmental change in Western Anatolia and reveals a significant relationship between climate variability and shifts in vegetation patterns, particularly highlighting the increasing frequency of fires and changes in land use during certain periods. This finding serves as an important example for understanding the relationships between climate, vegetation, fire, and land use in the Mediterranean Basin.