Studia Quaternaria, vol. 38, no. 1 (2021): 3–17 DOI: 10.24425/sq.2020.133758 MIDDLE AND LATE PLEISTOCENE LOESS-PALAEOSOL ARCHIVES IN EAST CROATIA: MULTI-PROXY PALAEOECOLOGICAL STUDIES ON ZMAJEVAC AND ŠARENGRAD II SEQUENCES Dávid Molnár1, 2*, László Makó1, 2, Péter Cseh1, 2, Pál Sümegi1, 2, István Fekete3, Lidija Galović4 1 Department of Geology and Paleontology, University of Szeged, H-6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2-6, Hungary; e-mail:
[email protected] 2 University of Szeged, Interdisciplinary Excellence Centre, Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Long Environmental Changes research team, H-6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2-6, Hungary; 3 Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics, University of Szeged, H-6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2-6, Hungary; 4 Croatian Geological Survey, Sachsova 2, 10001 Zagreb, Croatia. * corresponding author Abstract: Multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental analyses on the two loess-palaeosol sequences of Šarengrad II and Zmajevac (Croatia) provided the opportunity to obtain various data on climatic and environmental events that occurred in the southern part of the Carpathian Basin during the past 350,000 years. Palaeoecological horizons were reconstructed using sedimentological data (organic matter and carbonate content, grain-size distribution and magnetic susceptibility) and the dominance-based malacological results (MZs) supported by habitat and richness charts, moreover multi-variate statistics (cluster analysis). The correlation of the reconstructed palaeoecological horizons with global climatic trends (Marine Isotope Stages) determined the main accumulation processes in the examined areas. The palaeoecological analyses revealed specific accumulation conditions at both sequences, fluvial and aeolian environments at Šarengrad and a possible forest refuge at Zmajevac. Key words: palaeoecology, malacology, sedimentology, Šarengrad, Zmajevac, Croatia Manuscript received 17 March 2020, accepted 1 October 2020 INTRODUCTION palaeosol sequences (Zmajevac and Šarengrad II), situated on the right bank of the Danube River (Fig.