Data

The paleoclimate of the southern Levant, especially during the last interglacial (LIG), is still under debate. Reliable paleovegetation information for this period, as independent evidence to the paleoenvironment, was still missing. In this study, we present a high-resolution pollen record encompassing 147-89 ka from the Dead Sea deep drilling core 5017-1A. The sediment profile is marked by alternations of laminated marl deposits and thick massive halite, indicating lake-level fluctuations. The pollen...

Lake Kinneret, also known as the Sea of Galilee and Lake Tiberias, is located in the northeast of Israel. At a lake level of 211 m b.s.l. (below mean sea level), the central basin is 43 m deep. The maximum length of the lake is 21 km (N–S) and its maximum width is 12 km (W–E). Lake Kinneret’s surface area is 166 km². A new 17.8 m long sedimentary core was drilled in 2010. Here, we present the entire palynological record from it, which covers the last ~ 9,000 years. Special emphasis is given to the natural...

For an understanding of the climate system’s variability, knowledge of the past climate is essential. Continuous observations are not available for longer than the last 100 years, a period that is insufficient to understand the variability and sensitivity of the climate system. Since information of both is necessary to build good climate models, the reconstruction of the past climate is fundamental. With palaeoclimate reconstructions it is possible to get information about the past climate and the climate...

Paleo-vegetation of northern Israel is reconstructed from palynological data over the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, and related to climate variation in the Levant, as well as anthropogenic impact on vegetation. Being located in the arid-to-semi-arid climatic transitional zone, the modern and past vegetation in northern Israel comprises both, Mediterranean macchia, and Irano-Turanian steppe assemblages, and thus is highly sensitive to climate change. Palynological analyses were carried out on two...

The Dead Sea, located at the deepest place on continent and between the subtropical Mediterranean zone and the desert, reflects in its water composition and levels, and sedimentary records the hydrological conditions in the southern Levant region. Temporal variations in rainfall and temperatures of the Holocene Levant are reconstructed here from pollen data recovered from a sediment core drilled at the Ein Gedi shore, applying a novel biome model based on Bayesian statistics. Our results suggest that the...