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Late Holocene high resolution palaeoclimatic reconstruction inferred from Sebkha Mhabeul, southeast Tunisia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

L. Marquer ,
S. Pomel ,
A. Abichou ,
E. Schulz ,
D. Kaniewski  and
E. Van Campo
L. Marquer*
Affiliation:
Département de Préhistoire, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, UMR-CNRS 5198, France ECOLAB — Laboratoire d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle, Université de Toulouse, UMR-CNRS-UPS-INPT 5245, France
S. Pomel
Affiliation:
Laboratoire Environnement Tropical, Equipe DYMSET, Université de Bordeaux 3, UMR-CNRS 5185, France
A. Abichou
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Tunis, Tunisia
E. Schulz
Affiliation:
Geographisches Institüt Am Hubland, Würzburg Universiteit, Germany
D. Kaniewski
Affiliation:
ECOLAB — Laboratoire d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle, Université de Toulouse, UMR-CNRS-UPS-INPT 5245, France
E. Van Campo
Affiliation:
ECOLAB — Laboratoire d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle, Université de Toulouse, UMR-CNRS-UPS-INPT 5245, France
*
*Corresponding author. Département de Préhistoire, Muséum National d'histoire naturelle, 1 rue René Panhard, 75013 Paris (France). Fax: +33 1 43 31 22 79. E-mail address:marquer@mnhn.fr (L. Marquer).
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Abstract

Relations between climate change and landscape evolution during the last two millennia in southeastern coastal Tunisia have been documented using high-resolution reconstruction of flood history and fire activity in the Sebkha Mhabeul core. The age model, based on tephrochronology, indicates that the core extends from Roman to modern times and encompasses the well-defined climatic periods of the last two millennia. This record provides a first palaeoecological/palaeoclimatic high resolution reconstruction in North Africa using a cross-disciplinary approach with both physical (grey-scale intensity, quartz particles) and biological (charcoal and pollen) indicators. The flood history shows four wet/dry cycles (ca. AD 550–950, 950–1300, 1300–1570 and 1570–1870) of different duration. Major hydrological instabilities are concentrated during the Medieval Climate Anomalies and the early Little Ice Age, between AD 1000 and 1550. Direct correlation between climate and fire cannot be established suggesting that the fire history of the Sebkha environment is mainly influenced by human activity. This study demonstrates the great value of sebkhas as palaeoenvironmental archives.

Keywords

FireClimatic changesHuman impactLate HoloceneSebkhaSoutheast Tunisia
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , September 2008 , pp. 240 - 250
Copyright
University of Washington

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