TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental change in the Limfjord, Denmark (ca 7500-1500 cal yrs BP): a multiproxy study
AU - Lewis, Jonathan P.
AU - Ryves, David B.
AU - Rasmussen, Peter
AU - Knudsen, Karen L.
AU - Petersen, Kaj S.
AU - Olsen, Jesper
AU - Leng, Melanie J.
AU - Kristensen, Peter
AU - McGowan, Suzanne
AU - Philippsen, Bente
N1 - Funding Information:
Beth Stavngaard, Ole Bennike and Bent Odgaard are thanked for field and laboratory support. Molten and Define members are also thanked for transfer function production, support and helpful comments and discussion. Funding from Loughborough University Development Fund (Ph.D. funding for JPL), Quaternary Research Association (QRA) New Researchers' Award (for sedimentary pigments to JPL) and NERC Isotope Geosciences Facilities Steering Committee (NIGFSC; award no. IP/1080/1108 , for isotope analysis to DBR and JPL) and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (for funding several 14 C-datings) are gratefully acknowledged. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for thorough and thoughtful reviews that have improved the paper. This manuscript is dedicated to Kaj Strand Petersen, who sadly passed away during the course of this project and will be greatly missed by family, friends and colleagues.
PY - 2013/10/15
Y1 - 2013/10/15
N2 - The Limfjord region of northern Jutland, Denmark, supports a rich archaeological record dating back to the Mesolithic, which documents long-term change in human practices and utilisation of marine resources since approximately 7500BP. The presence and availability of marine resources in the Limfjord is sensitively regulated by environmental parameters such as salinity, sedimentary regime, nutrient status and primary productivity, but long-term changes in these parameters are currently poorly understood. In this study a multiproxy approach (including sedimentary parameters, diatoms, molluscs, foraminifera, sedimentary pigments, C and O stable isotopes and plant macrofossils) has been adopted to assess environmental change over the period ca 7500-1500calyrsBP at Kilen, a coastal fjord (before AD 1856) situated in the Western Limfjord. A diatom-based salinity transfer function based on a pan-Baltic training set has been applied to the fossil diatom dataset for quantitative assessment of salinity change over the study period. This study demonstrates that large-scale shifts in salinity are a common feature of the Limfjord's long-term history and are driven by the level of connection with the North Sea and the Skagerrak respectively, which in turn is likely driven by the complex interplay between climate, sea-level change, current velocity and rates of erosion/sedimentary accretion. Three shifts in state at Kilen are identified over the study period: a deep, periodically stratified fjord with medium-high salinity (and high productivity) between ca 7500-5000BP, followed by a gradual transition to a shallow benthic system with more oceanic conditions (i.e. higher salinity, lower productivity, slower sedimentary accumulation rate and poorer fossil preservation) after ca 5000BP and no stratification after ca 4400BP, and lastly, within this shallow phase, an abrupt shift to brackish conditions around 2000BP. Environmental-societal interactions are discussed on the basis of the data presented in this study and current environmental hypotheses for cultural change are challenged.
AB - The Limfjord region of northern Jutland, Denmark, supports a rich archaeological record dating back to the Mesolithic, which documents long-term change in human practices and utilisation of marine resources since approximately 7500BP. The presence and availability of marine resources in the Limfjord is sensitively regulated by environmental parameters such as salinity, sedimentary regime, nutrient status and primary productivity, but long-term changes in these parameters are currently poorly understood. In this study a multiproxy approach (including sedimentary parameters, diatoms, molluscs, foraminifera, sedimentary pigments, C and O stable isotopes and plant macrofossils) has been adopted to assess environmental change over the period ca 7500-1500calyrsBP at Kilen, a coastal fjord (before AD 1856) situated in the Western Limfjord. A diatom-based salinity transfer function based on a pan-Baltic training set has been applied to the fossil diatom dataset for quantitative assessment of salinity change over the study period. This study demonstrates that large-scale shifts in salinity are a common feature of the Limfjord's long-term history and are driven by the level of connection with the North Sea and the Skagerrak respectively, which in turn is likely driven by the complex interplay between climate, sea-level change, current velocity and rates of erosion/sedimentary accretion. Three shifts in state at Kilen are identified over the study period: a deep, periodically stratified fjord with medium-high salinity (and high productivity) between ca 7500-5000BP, followed by a gradual transition to a shallow benthic system with more oceanic conditions (i.e. higher salinity, lower productivity, slower sedimentary accumulation rate and poorer fossil preservation) after ca 5000BP and no stratification after ca 4400BP, and lastly, within this shallow phase, an abrupt shift to brackish conditions around 2000BP. Environmental-societal interactions are discussed on the basis of the data presented in this study and current environmental hypotheses for cultural change are challenged.
KW - Coastal
KW - Diatoms
KW - Foraminifera
KW - Holocene
KW - Kilen
KW - Limfjord
KW - Molluscs
KW - Productivity
KW - Salinity
KW - Sedimentary pigments
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84879150294&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.05.020
DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.05.020
M3 - Article
SN - 0277-3791
VL - 78
SP - 126
EP - 140
JO - Quaternary Science Reviews
JF - Quaternary Science Reviews
ER -