The extent of vegetation openness in past European landscapes is widely debated. In particular, the temperate forest biome has traditionally been defined as dense, closed-canopy forest; however, some argue that large herbivores maintained greater openness or even wood-pasture conditions. Here, we address this question for the Last Interglacial period (129,000–116,000 years ago), before Homo sapiens –linked megafauna declines and anthropogenic landscape transformation. We applied the vegetation reconstruction method REVEALS to 96 Last Interglacial pollen records. We found that light woodland and open vegetation represented, on average, more than 50% cover during this period. The degree of openness was highly variable and only partially linked to climatic factors, indicating the importance of natural disturbance regimes. Our results show that the temperate forest biome was historically heterogeneous rather than uniformly dense, which is consistent with the dependency of much of contemporary European biodiversity on open vegetation and light woodland.

The principal aim of this paper is to present a critical overview of the stratigraphical subdivision and correlation of the Late Mid‐Pleistocene (LMP) sediments in Lithuania. In recent decades, a number of studies of LMP sediments have been carried out, allowing clarification of the stratigraphical position of individual sedimentary sections. Particular efforts have been made to determine the age of sediments using a variety of absolute age determination methods. However, there are still several outstanding questions. It is still unclear how many warm periods occurred during the Saalian in Lithuania and of what magnitude. The least problematic issue is identification of the Butėnai (Holsteinian) Interglacial as it correlates well biostratigraphically with the contemporaneous sections of adjacent areas. The most controversial unit is the Snaigupėlė Interglacial, the age of which continues to be a subject of debate. Recently, more evidence has emerged that the sediments considered to be of the Snaigupėlė Interglacial are contemporaneous with the Merkinė (Eemian) Interglacial. The chronological placement of these sediments closely hinges on the unresolved stratigraphical classification of the Medininkai deposits (MIS 6 or MIS 8?) and the Žemaitija tills (MIS 8 or MIS 10?). The debate is centred on whether these two tills were formed during two entirely different glaciations or represent different phases of a single major glaciation event. Traditionally, these two tills were attributed to distinct glaciation events separated by the Snaigupėlė Interglacial. However, no sedimentary sections have been discovered that contain both these tills and the interglacial sediments that separate them. Given the similar lithological, geochemical and petrographic composition of the Medininkai and Žemaitija tills some research has supported their possible stadial rank. The clarification of these stratigraphical issues in the future may be facilitated by the application of new proxies and re‐examination of the existing LMP key sections.

This study presents the first subfossil beetle (Coleoptera) records from Lithuania, from Late Glacial organic deposits. Bulk sediment samples were collected from the Pamerkiai and Zervynos Outcrops in SE Lithuania, and from the Ventė Outcrop at the eastern coast of the Curonian Lagoon, W Lithuania. Radiocarbon dating determined that the studied sediments accumulated between ~15,000–11,300 cal BP. The beetle assemblages (29–177 individuals per sample) consist of many cold-adapted species that are common from Late Glacial deposits in the British Isles, Southern Sweden, and continental Europe. True arctic species are absent from the assemblages, and it is likely that the Lithuanian beetle fauna was most similar to nearby southern regions (e.g., Poland) during the Late Glacial. Besides a variety of aquatic species and typical wetland species, many beetle species living in open environments and on sandy soils were identified. In almost all the samples, taxa associated with pine trees, willows, and birches were found, confirming previous reconstructions of a sparsely forested landscape during the climatic periods GI-1e–GI-1a (Bølling-Allerød). The species assemblages from the youngest samples, associated with GS-1 (Younger Dryas), indicate the disappearance of large aquatic macrophytes and decreasing temperatures in Southern Lithuania, but a persistence of trees in the region.