The existence of a “young farmer problem” in Europe has been recognized by scientists and policy-makers and is based on the widespread acknowledgement of the poor generational renewal rates in the farming sector and in particular in farmland management across the European Union. Despite existing support policy measures, young farmers (YF) face barriers which hamper the establishment and consolidation of their farming enterprises.

Knowing the extent and frequency of forest cuttings over large areas is crucial for forest inventories and monitoring. Remote sensing has amply proved its ability to detect land cover changes, particularly in forested areas. Among various strategies, those focusing on mapping using classification approaches of remotely sensed time series are the most frequently used. The main limit of such approaches stems from the difficulty in perfectly and unambiguously classifying each pixel, especially over wide areas. The same procedure is of course simpler if performed over a single pixel.

This contribution provides a first characterization of the environmental development for the surroundings of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Göbekli Tepe. We base our analyses on a literature review that covers the environmental components of prevailing bedrock and soils, model- and proxy-based climatic development, and vegetation. The spatio-temporal scales that are covered are mainly the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Late Quaternary—whereby special attention is given to available data from the close vicinity of Göbekli Tepe.