Loess and loess-like sediments from the foothills of the Banat Mountains, Romania – Examples from loess sections and Paleolithic sites

Abstract

New investigations from loess and loess-like sediments in the Western Plain of Romania
provide evidences for a deeper insight and connection between long loess sections of the lowlands (Semlac) and short sections from the Carpathian foothills (Romanesti and Cosava). While the long loess sections provide evidence concerning climatic and environmental change since the middle Pleistocene the short sequences from the foothills include Paleolithic sites give information especially for the interstadial of the last glacial cycle when the first modern humans arrived in Europe. The section at Semlac is regarded as a key section for Western Romania, which offers possibilities to a) improve the understanding of the type and composition of the lowland loess sequences, b) to reconstruct the local loess-palaeosol succession and c) to connect the loesses of the region for the first time to loess-sequences in adjacent areas. The Paleolithic sites Romanesti and Cosava are situated at the foothills of the Banat Mountains in Romania and provide an important testament of life of the first European modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) during Middle Pleniglacial. Even though these sites have been extensively excavated, little is known about the site formation
of related loess-like sediments and soils. First luminescence data for the region of all these investigated sections confirm sediments from the penultimate glacial period up to the Holocene. For Semlac, a first relative dating is given by rock magnetic methods in comparison to Serbian loess sections.

Resources

Bibliography

Lehmkuhl, F., Kels, H., Hambach, U., Protze, J., Eckmeier, E., Hilgers, A., Klasen, N. (2013): Loess and loess-like sediments from the foothills of the Banat Mountains, Romania – Examples from loess sections and Paleolithic sites. AGU Fall meeting 2013, San Francisco, USA.