Vegetation and hydrology of Ljubljansko barje in the past, present and future – a consequence of succession, human impact or climatic fluctuations?

Research project brings together researchers working across the fields of palaeoecology, ecology and archaeology, to study past and present environment of the eastern Alpine wetlands of Slovenia in order to better understand environmental processes, formation of cultural landscape, and the reasons for changes of vegetation and hydrology. The main study area is Ljubljansko barje marshy area, where, due to wet hydrological conditions, lake and marsh sediments are commonplace and the preservation of pile dwelling Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites is good. In few parts of Ljubljansko barje, ombrotrophic plant species still survive, therefore it is possible to study modern peat bog ecosystems alongside the palaeo record.

Research project focuses on high-resolution multi-proxy investigation of sedimentary core, collected at Mali plac, and includes the following analyses: pollen and microscopic charcoal analysis, loss-on-ignition, analysis of plant macrofossils, diatoms, stable isotopes, biomarkers and radiocarbon dating. Modern peat bog ecosystems of Mali plac was studied along palaeorecord in order to better understand palaeorecord and to help us to plan for water outflow regulations and other renaturation measures at Mali plac. We explore the intensity, temporal and spatial scale of the Lateglacial-Holocene environmental changes to better understand how dissimilar natural archives (small, hydrologically simple vs. big hydrologically complex or simple basins) react to climate changes and human impact, which changes of vegetation and hydrology were local/regional and whether they were triggered by climatic fluctuations or any other drivers (e.g. human impact). We address the question of how the archaeological settlement pattern at Ljubljansko barje was affected by changes of palaeoenvironment (e.g. vegetation, hydrology) and how people affected their environment by agriculture and metallurgical activities.

Mali plac in Ljubljansko barje

The palaeoecological record from this study is compared with other study sites in Ljubljansko barje (central Slovenia), Alpine region of northwestern Slovenia, as well as palaeoclimate and archaeological data in Slovenia and Europe. Slovenia is located in a transitional zone between the Central Europe, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Pannonian plain and is thus sensitive to climate fluctuations. This research therefore have much wider (European/global) perspective to test synchronicity of climate change between the Greenland and other areas and to better understand possible leads and lags of resulting palaeoenvironmental changes in different regions of Europe.