DSC07918

277

circle (Haufler 1955). The significant expansion of Southern or indifferent species (Pupilla muscorum, Yallonici sp.) have taken place and at sonie regions still continues. The humankind has become during at least two last industri-L    _al centuries the principal geological factor and biological restraint.

[d    7. CONCLUSIONS

n

L    Every medium, every linę of fossil evidence is bringing not only an indi-

L    vidual but also interconnected message about studied paleoenvironments. The

L    paleobotanical, mostly pollen analysis studies, document just one, however

L    basie and unique, source of Holocene information. Large areas of Central

Europę, including some of the most sensitive landscapes such as sandstone areas, karstlands and loess-chemozem districts, are lacking suitable, long and L    continuous proftles in peatbogs and associated aquatic cnvironmcnts, but they

L    contain a number of other sedimentary sequences such as tufa bodies, slope

[    series, calcareous marshes and floodplain sediments that document different

j    aspects of environmental change. These aspects, like intensity of carbonate

I    metabolism, relation of humid and dry phases to prehistorie civilizations, slope

L    dynamics and other ones, are hardly traceable by pollen methods. Marshes and

I    peatbogs can be in Central Europę mostly found in marginal and obscure

environments such as peneplainised mountains or basins that significantly differ from interior formations — e.g. it is virtually impossible to generalize the results obtained in the Treboń Basin (Southern Bohemia) to a nearby lo-cation of the Palava Mts. in Southern Moravia. We may thus treat Holocene studies as a compilation of evidence coming from individual Holocene facies. These facies may be ordered in certain pattems that correspond to Holocene stratigraphic provinces.

North-South Holocene transect is likely to intersect the Scandinavian prov-ince between Scandinavia, Northern Germany and Poland, Mid-European province between Middle Germany and Alps; and the Mediterranean prov-ince dependent morę on the position of intratropical zonę of convergence than on North Atlantic Oscillation. The West-East transect in area north of Alps and east of Pyrenees is dependent on the function of North Atlantic Oscillation and thus on prevailing oceanie or Continental climates (Hurrell 1995; Broecker 1997). While in oceanie climate the Holocene changes can be mostly described in terms - morę humid/less humid, the Continental climates are due to the enhanced climatic differences morę often trespassing the limits of natura! systems. Droughts are morę coramon and thus forest-grassland changes may take place. Such change may have relatively minor conscąuences in some