symposium #20 Human landscapes and climate change during the Holocene
Man, vegetation and climate during the late Holocene in the Western Taurus mountains, SW Turkey
Bakker, J.1,2, Verstraeten, G.1, Kaniewski, D.2,3, Paulissen, E.1
1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, K.U.Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3000 Leuven,
Belgium
2 Center for Archaeological Sciences, K.U.Leuven, Maria Theresiastraat 21, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
3 Université de Toulouse, UPS, INPT, EcoLab (Laboratoire d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle), 29 rue Jeanne
Marvig, 31055 Toulouse, France
Email: Johan.Bakker@ees.kuleuven.be
Since 1993 multidisciplinary palaeoenvironmental research in the territory of Sagalassos, Western
Taurus Mountains, SW Turkey, also focuses on reconstructing past vegetation and disentangling the
relationship between man, climate, vegetation and sedimentation. With the accumulation of data, it
has become possible to construct a comprehensive overview of local and regional vegetation and
agriculture changes for the late Holocene. The chronology is based on a large set of radiocarbon
ages.
An increase in human pressure occurred between c. 2530 and 2310 yr BP, when pollen records from
multiple intramontane basins show a distinct deforestation phase, followed by a lengthy period of
intense crop cultivation and arboriculture. The timing of the onset of this deforestation phase with
important fire events differs between the two sites, but increasing moisture availability since c. 280 cal
BC is seen to have acted as a trigger to increases in crop cultivation, arboriculture. This cultivation
period is seen as a local incarnation of the Beyşehir Occupation Phase (BO Phase). The BO Phase,
as recorded in the territory of Sagalassos is well correlated with archaeological data as it largely
corresponds with the Hellenistic, Roman and late-Roman periods of occupation. The onset of the BO
Phase is 14C dated later in Sagalassos than in other published sites in southwest Turkey, about 800
years after the earliest recorded signs of the BO Phase in a record from Gölhisar Gölü. The end of the
BO Phase is characterized by the disappearance of arboriculture and agriculture from the pollen
records and a resurgence of Pinus pollen, while Quercus pollen percentages do not return to pre BO
Phase levels. The timing of the end of the BO Phase differs between locations. For the Sagalassos
territory, estimates range from the 5th (Bereket) to the 7th century (Gravgaz). The disappearance of
intensive agriculture from the territory is linked to strongly decreasing moisture availability in the
landscape.
A study implementing a multivariate statistical analysis reveals that vegetation changes after the end
of the BO Phase are largely driven by climate and also revealed the existence of a succession of dry
and wet periods that coincided with well-defined European climate shifts. These include the medieval
climate anomaly and the Little Ice age. This is the first successful pollen-based climate reconstruction
for Turkey and enables a high temporal resolution of climate change not attained before for the wider
region. The results also show the near absence of agriculture in the region during most of the post BO
Phase period. Only during a wet period, contemporaneous with the European Medieval Climate
Anomaly, is there a notable resurgence in agriculture. Agriculture disappears again as the region
becomes markedly dryer during the 14th century. Current agricultural activities in the region are of a
very recent (19th or 20th century) origin.