6,000 years of vegetation and fire history at the timberline ecotone site Drakolimni Smolikas in the Pindos Mountains, northwestern Greece

The vegetation history and the onset of agricultural exploitation of the mountainous areas of Greece are mostly unstudied. We present a paleoecological study of the timberline ecotone site Drakolimni Smolikas at 2,140 m.a.s.l. in the Pindos Mountains. Through pollen, spores, stomata, algae cells, macrofossils, microscopic charcoal analysis, magnetic susceptibility, X-ray fluorescence, and a radiocarbon-dated chronology, we reconstruct the vegetation, fire, and environmental history of Mount Smolikas over the past 6,200 years. Additionally, we estimate July temperature trends through chironomid analysis. This multiproxy procedure allows us to analyze the linkages between climate, vegetation, fire, and land use. Coeval downward shifts of the timberline and increases of crops and weeds suggest anthropogenic control of the timberline altitude. Our results indicate the presence of pastoralism on Mount Smolikas since at least the Late Bronze Age, possibly the Neolithic, much earlier than previously thought. Despite the early human disturbance, and a ca. 2°C mean July air temperature decrease from the Holocene Thermal Maximum to the Late Holocene, the vegetation structure and composition around our site remained surprisingly resilient. The landscape was always dominated by sparse Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) forests and the lake was situated within the timberline ecotone throughout most of the record.