The Holocene delivers a unique possibility to establish climatic stratigraphic boundaries based on detailed chronostratigraphy reflected in various facies of continental sediments, in their lithological parameters and organic remains. These sediments are dated by the ¹⁴C method in the case of organic remains, by counting annual laminations in lacustrine facies, and by dendrochronological method in the case of fluvial sediments. The existence of well dated profiles enables to reconstruct various climatic parameters like amplitudes of seasonal temperatures, types and frequency of extreme rainfalls and floods and, finally, to distinguish rare rapid changes and most frequent gradual ones. This reconstruction is based on the analogous effects of various types of present-day rainfalls. The current authors present a critical review of existing chronostratigraphic divisions starting from simple millennial division by Mangerud based on Scandinavian palynological stratigraphy of peat-bogs and Starkel’s concept based on fluctuations in rainfall and runoff regime reflected in fluvial and other facies of continental deposits. In the last decades, the calibration of ¹⁴C dates allowed a new approach to be used for the construction of the probability distribution function of these dates in various facies or types of sediments, which formed a background for distinguishing and correlating climatic phases and defining boundaries between them. These approaches have been creating new opportunities for revision of the existing chronostratigraphy. The aim of this paper is to present a revised version of chronostratigraphic division based on climatic fluctuations reflected in various facies of sediments on the territory of Poland and discuss their correlation with other European regions and global climatic changes.

We report on a statistical analysis of a large set of radiocarbon dates for reconstruction of paleoclimate. Probability density functions were constructed by summing the probability distributions of individual ¹⁴C dates. Our analysis was based on 2 assumptions: 1) The amount of organic matter in sediments depends on paleogeographical conditions; 2) The number of ¹⁴C-dated samples is proportional to the amount of organic matter deposited in sediments in the examined time intervals. We quantified how many dates are required to give statistically reliable results. As an example, 785 peat dates from Poland were selected. The dates encompassed the Holocene and Late Glacial period. All dates came from the Gliwice Radiocarbon Laboratory. Results were compared with other paleoenvironmental records. Detailed analysis of the frequency distributions showed that preferential sampling plays an important part in the shape determination. The general rule to take samples from locations where visible changes of sedimentation are apparent (e.g. from the top and the bottom of the peat layer) results in narrow peaks in the probability density function near the limits of the Holocene subdivision.