The record of human/climate interactions in lake sediments

Climatic conditions and their changes are an important factor for the socio-economic development of human societies. For most of the time since the first appearance of modern man, sometime around the last interglacial, the climate-man relation worked in only one direction: shifts of climatic conditions influenced human societies and their cultural development. It was only in historical and recent times that a true interaction was established with assumed effects of human activities on climate as well. Within the European Lake DrillingProg ramme (ELDP), a special topic on the relationship between the responses of natural ecosystems to climate change and the development of human societies has been implemented.