Lake-Level Changes and Their Paleo-Climatic Implications at the MIS12 Lower Paleolithic (Middle Pleistocene) Site Marathousa 1, Greece

Lithics and cut-marked mammal bones, excavated from the paleo-lake Marathousa 1 (MAR-1) sediments in the Megalopolis Basin, southern Greece, indicate traces of hominin activity occurring along a paleo-shoreline ca. 444,000 years (444 ka) ago. However, the local environment and climatic conditions promoting hominin activity in the area during the MIS12 glacial remain largely unknown. In order to reconstruct the paleo-environment including paleo-lake levels and governing paleo-climatic factors on a high temporal resolution, we analyzed a 6-meter-long sediment sequence from the archeological site MAR-1 and a Bayesian age model was computed for a better age constrain of the different sedimentary units. A multiproxy approach was applied using ostracods, sponge spicules, diatoms, grain sizes, total organic carbon, total inorganic carbon and conventional X-ray fluorescence analysis. The results from the site represent a protected region surrounded by high mountains under the constant influence of water, either as a shallow partly anoxic water body surrounded by reed belts (>463–457 ka,