Late Valdai pollen flora from loess sediments in the central East-European Plain. Paleoenvironmental reconstruction

The paper summarizes data on paleofloras recovered from the Late Pleistocene (late Valdai) loess in the Desna R. drainage basin. Components of the fossil flora have been identified as belonging to particular environments and communities. Their modern ranges are defined, and some climatic parameters of the last glaciation are inferred from the paleobotanical materials. The reconstructed landscapes of periglacial forest–steppe developed as a result of both radical changes in vegetation of the temperate forest zone of the last interglacial and migration of individual floristic groups which were able to adapt to cold and continental climate of the glacial time.