Open Access

Christian Willmes, Kamil Niedziółka, Benjamin Serbe, Sonja B. Grimm, Daniel Groß, Andrea Miebach, Michael Märker, Felix Henselowsky, Alexander Gamisch, Masoud Rostami, Ana Mateos, Jesús Rodríguez, Heiko Limberg, Isabell Schmidt, Martin Müller, Ericson Hölzchen, Michael Holthausen, Konstantin Klein, Christian Wegener, Bernhard Weninger, Trine Kellberg Nielsen, Taylor Otto, Gerd-Christian Weniger, Olaf Bubenzer, Georg Bareth

• In this report, we present the contributions, outcomes, ideas, discussions and conclusions obtained at the PaleoMaps Workshop 2019, that took place at the Institute of Geography of the University of Cologne on 23 and 24 September 2019. The twofold aim of the workshop was: (1) to provide an overview of approaches and methods that are presently used to incorporate paleoenvironmental information in human–environment interaction modeling applications, and building thereon; (2) to devise new approaches and solutions that might be used to enhance the reconstruction of past human–environmental interconnections. This report first outlines the presented papers, and then provides a joint protocol of the often extensive discussions that came up following the presentations or else during the refreshment intervals. It concludes by adressing the open points to be resolved in future research avenues, e.g., implementation of open science practices, new procedures for reviewing of publications, and future concepts for quality assurance of the often complex paleoenvironmental data. This report may serve as an overview of the state of the art in paleoenvironment mapping and modeling. It includes an extensive compilation of the basic literature, as provided by the workshop attendants, which will itself facilitate the necessary future research.