Évolution de l’environnement dans la plaine de Konya (Turquie) pendant l’Holocène = Environmental changes in Anatolia during Holocene : examples from the Konya Plain, Inner Anatolia

Located in the endoreic and semi-arid plateaus of inner Anatolia, the Konya Plain corresponds to a Glacial lake (21-17,000 years BP) where lakes and marshes reappeared partly and temporarily during the Holocene. In five sub-basins of the plain, several sequences studied in open sections and in the upper part of a core allow us to propose a chronological scheme and to evidence environmental variations during the Holocene. The characterization of past environments is based on sedimentological analyses on lacustrine, marshy, soil and aeolian deposit successions. The chronological frame is based on a series of 14C dates. Interpretation of results shows increasing dryness from the beginning of the Younger Dryas (ca. 11,000 14C conv. years BP), followed by, after ca. 8,000 years BP, alternances of “humid” and “dry” periods. After the mid-Holocene drought which is marked by the construction and mobilization of sand dunes, the causes of environmental changes observed are difficult to assess : either they are linked to negative or positive impacts of human acivities on the availability of the water resources or on the stability of soils, or they represent decreasing or increasing variations in rainfall amounts. However, some recent Holocene environmental changes seem to record some recent climatic changes, such as a more humid period at the beginning of the 6th millennium BP, followed by a severe drought which has been evidenced in other regions of the Near East.