Application of malacological analysis to reconstruction of regional and local environmental changes: the Cisowa Skała locality (the Carpathians, southern Poland)

Abstract

An isolated limestone hill (Cisowa Skała), located in the Podhale Basin in southern Poland, has yielded mollusc shells and small vertebrate bones in deposits filling small karst forms such as rock shelters, characteristic molluscan assemblages can be identified, the succession of which reflects changes in the environment and also microhabitat variations depending on local factors, such as slope exposure and type of vegetation. These local factors markedly affect regional environmental trends determined primarily by climate change and, during the last several hundred years, also by human activity. Such malacological analysis enables effective palaeogeographical reconstructions, both on the scale of geographical regions and for microhabitats.