First C-14 datings of Late Glacial and Holocene pollen sequences from Romanian Carpathes

Two palustrine sedimentary sequences were taken at high altitude in the north-east and south-west of the Romanian Carpathian chain. For the first time in Romania, the history of the vegetation, established by pollen analysis, has been supported by 23 C-14 datings. The two sequences begin in the Late Glacial. At one site, the cooling of the Younger Dryas is on ly faintly visible; at the second site, th is cooling could not be determined. The post-glacial warming is marked by the colonisation of a bushland of green alder and mugo pine, followed by the establish ment of a spruce forest after 9200 B.P. This occurred first in the south-west and later in the north-east. Later a probable lag of 2 000 years (around 6600 B.P. and 4500 B.P.) has been noted in the spread of Carpinus in the foothills of the two sites 220 km apart. The spread of Fagus occurs slightly before 3000 B.P. The re-expansion of Pinus mugo bushlands observed shortly after this date is a consequence of pastoralism. (C) 1999 Academie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.