Age interpretation of the Wonderkrater spring sediments and vegetation change in the Savanna Biome, Limpopo province, South Africa

Abstract

Spring accumulations are valuable and rare sources for Quaternary pollen analysis and palaeoenvironmental research in South Africa. It is important to optimize their dating, which is sometimes complicated by root contamination. Thirteen new radiocarbon dates are presented from one of the most significant spring pollen sequences on which South African vegetation history is based, namely, from Wonderkrater in the Savanna Biome. Some anomalous measurements were recorded but a new chronology is proposed by excluding samples that were possibly contaminated by younger or older materials. The dating places the pollen-based vegetation history more firmly in a framework of regional and global climate change during the Late Quaternary, thereby making the information more suitable for comparison with other sequences and as vegetation data in global-change modelling.