Landscapes and Paleolandscapes in south-eastern Europe during Late Quaternary and their relevance for human habitats and dispersal

Abstract

Pleistocene landscape dynamics affect climatic and environmental conditions, and may have had a major impact on modern human habitats. In this contribution, reconstructions of modern and late Pleistocene environments based on landscape evolution models are presented and discussed following a series of transects from the Pannonian Basin to the Black Sea. These transects include geomorphological features and landscapes like loess plateaus, dune fields, alluvial plains, the Carpathian Mountains, and their foothills. To enhance our understanding of anatomically modern human (AMH) habitats, transects of paleo-landscapes from the Carpathian Basin to the Black Sea coast are investigated, focussing on a time-interval of ca. 30,000-40,000 years ago and the last glacial maximum