The present study concerns the pollen analysis of sediments extracted from Lake Volvi, the second largest lake of Greece, located in the region of Macedonia, 11.5 km northeast of Thessaloniki. Macedonia stands out for its incredible biodiversity both for geological, climatic and human factors. The region is one of the most sensitive Mediterranean areas from an ecological point of view. Macedonia includes river and wetland habitats near the lakes, and it has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic. Showing a strong human occupation since the Bronze Age that even increased over time, Macedonia has a peculiar location along the strategic route linking Europe and Asia. The area of Lake Volvi preserves a rare wetland ecosystem: the close by Tempi valley is characterized by dense riparian vegetation and the whole area is protected by Ramsar convention and included in the Natura 2000 network. The biodiversity that characterised the entire area makes Lake Volvi a perfect case study of the past vegetational changes.
Palynology is a fundamental discipline in such studies: pollen data provides information on past flora and has become a useful tool to investigate human resilience to climate changes. A detailed reconstruction of changes in the regional vegetation and climate and the assessment of land-use activities require a robust and accurate chronology. The major obstacle in paleoenvironmental studies that deals with human impact is to establish an accurate and consistent age -depth model. This research aims at building a high-resolution pollen sequence whose chronology is based on 14C and 210Pb dating, to reconstruct the vegetation of Lake Volvi during the last millennia. A robust and reliable chronology will allow comparison of pollen data with historical information to deepen the human land use in the area, providing a new insight in the Mediterranean natural and cultural landscape.
The research will contribute to the comprehension of the environmental dynamics that occurred during the Holocene with a focus on the last 3 millennia and to evaluate the response of past societies to climatic changes. The research would represent an advancement in palynological studies in the Balkans deepening the knowledge of the past vegetation and cultivation, as far as the spread of agriculture and economy. The unique pattern created by climatic, geomorphological and anthropogenic factors as well as the long and important human history makes the area of Lake Volvi one of the best laboratories for the study of human interaction with the environment and changing climates (Konstandinidis and Tsiourlis 2003 GeoRange project [DGXII, EESD, ¿VK2-CT2000-00091] 46 pag). Obtaining the best possible chronology is especially critical for high-resolution studies of the most recent past, when precise comparison of proxy records to historical information allows the identification of direct reasons of changes in the surrounding environment (Oldfield et al. 2003 Quat Sci Rev 22:319¿34; Sadori et al. 2013 Clim Past 9: 1969¿1984). A multi-proxy approach combining pollen and other natural proxies along with detailed historical sources led to assets the environmental and climatic changes and disentangle between human and natural factors (McCormick et al. 2012 Journ Interdiscip Hist 43: 169-220; Mensing et al. 2015 Quat Sci Rev 116: 72-94).
The results acquired with this study will contribute to fill the gap of information for this high ecologically sensitive region (Willis 1994 Quat Sci Rev 13: 769¿788; Eastwood 2004 in: Griffiths et al., 25¿48); moreover, pollen analysis data will provide new evidence to reconstruct the environmental history, including both human and climatic evidence in the Mediterranean.