The distant chant. Climate reconstruction and landscape history. The last two millennia in Southeast Tunisia

A record of laminated sediments of Sebkha Mehabeul in Southeast Tunisia provided a high-resolution environmental archive for the last two millennia. It allowed a detailed reconstruction of the sedimentological evolution, of the mineral environment and hydrological history as well as the vegetation and landscape evolution and of climatic development. The impluvium character of the sebkha allowed it to establish a palaeopluviometric record, as well as the reconstruction of drought and flood periods. A pollen diagram revealed the persistent semi desert environment in the context of a cultural landscape. Despite the resilience of the semi desert ecosystems and periods of favourable climatic episodes the human impact was always strong enough to impede a change to more demanding ecosystems like steppe or woodlands.