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regions łike humid mountains, but may lead to environmental collapsc in other, generally drier landscapes. The Continental climate may bring phases of slopc destabilization, solifluction, downcutting, rock collapses, floodplain piana-tion and aggradation and other phenomena that are recorded in subaerie le-quences.

The complementary study of various Holocene facies of Mid-Europe lal K.D. J2ger (1969) to define the Holocene stratigraphy that difTers from clas-sical di vision by pointing out a new phase between the Atlantic and Subbo-real termed as the Epiatlantic. Numerous studies carried out in recent years have proved the validity of this division. The other important aspect of Holocene studies is the relationship between biostratigraphic and geochemical methods. The study of C and O stable isotopes in the tufa body at Svaty Jan pod Skalou (Bohemian Karst) provided paleotemperature curvc that could be compared to Greenland Ice Core oxygen isotopes (Źśk et al. 2002), but be-sides temperaturę proxies it did not add much evidence about landscape evo-lution. The nearby Holocene profiles excavated in slope sedimcnts undcr rocks or in cave entrances yield on the other hand a uniform pattern of sedimenta-tion including rich molluscan assemblages that enabled to decipher Holocene history in different time slices. The field sedimentological evidcnce e.g. clearly demonstrates that Pre-Neolithic foam sinter horizon represents the most humid Holocene event, while buried Subboreal soil represents the driest Holocene event(Loźek 1997).

The other significant contribution of molluscan analysis is the recognition of M id-European chemozem areas as specific facial districts where due to the prehistorie landnam the natural course of two thirds of the Holocene was al-tered towards steppe environment. The complete development of forest Systems that is so typical of the Mid-European Holocene has never happened here (Lożek 1982). The main purpose of this article was to demonstrate that pa-leoecological methods combined with archaeology and sedimentology are usually not capable to reconstruct a detailed paleotemperature curve but may grant something even morę valuable - the information about generał orsite specific landscape changes recorded as series of time slices.

Acknowledgements: The project was supported by Academic Project CEZ Z3-013912 and by Project GACR 205/02/0449 (Principal investigator K. Żak, Czech Geological Service, Praha). Authors are indebted to M. Filippi who helped with Computer graphics.