Böhringer See, western Lake Constance (Germany): an 8500 year record of vegetation change

Abstract

During the last 35 years, a number of high-resolution pollen diagrams were made for the western Lake Constance area. Up to now, 12 such records exist, most of them covering the time from the early Neolithic to the present, and all of them independently dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates. Here, we present a new pollen record from Böhringer See, a small dead ice lake, analysed in the course of a project on land-use change in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Pollen analysis was carried out in closed sampling in 1 cm or 0.5 cm sections, amounting to 465 samples. For all samples at least 1000 terrestrial pollen were counted and 334 taxa were identified. Twenty-three local pollen assemblage zones were distinguished covering the time from ad 6400–2000. The pollen record fits well into the regional framework. It depicts the regional vegetation development and human impact in detail but shows also minor local variations to the regional development featuring some original, local traits. The pollen record is rather similar to that from Litzelsee and Steisslinger See, both of which are located in close vicinity to the Böhringer See. The older pollen zones correlate very well chronologically with all pollen records in the area, the younger ones (from the Neolithic onwards) show stronger differentiation with regard to the duration and timing of pollen zones and the intensity of human impact. The raw data for this study will be published in the European Pollen Database.