The late Quaternary vegetational history of northwest Greece

summary The mountainous region of northwest Greece has often been cited as a possible area for the existence of temperate tree taxa during the last glacial. This series of papers examines the vegetational history and sedimentary history of two small basins in the Pindus mountain range of northwest Greece. The two basins are 18 km apart but at contrasting heights of 285 and 1800 m. The present paper describes results from the lowland basin of Gramousti lake. Techniques of pollen analysis, plant macrofossil analysis, sediment chemistry, mineral magnetics and radiocarbon dating are employed to reconstruct both the vegetational and sedimentary history of the basin. The sequence extends c. 14000 bp to c. 1000 bp . Palaeobotanical studies suggest that, during the lateglacial, vegetation in this lowland region was dominated by herbaceous taxa indicative of an open environment. Of the trees, only Quercus and Pinus were present, in low numbers. The lateglacial/postglacial transition was represented by an expansion of oak woodland and a reduction in steppe vegetation. Quercus dominated woodland persisted throughout much of the postglacial and became more diverse at c. 7500 bp with the arrival and expansion of Carpinus orientalis/Ostrya carpinifolia. Anthropogenic intervention at c. 4500 bp was probably responsible for a reduction in the oak woodland and the formation of a vegetation type similar to present day which is dominated by herbaceous taxa and chew‐resistant shrubs such as Quercus coccifera and Paliurus spina‐christi.