The lecture gives a general overview about palaeoenvironmental research and palaeoenvironments with focus on the Northern Hemisphere during the Late Pleistocene–Holocene period (last ca. 130,000 years). Students will learn about the methodological principles of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, such as most important palaeoenvironmental archives and their biogenic and non-biogenic environmental proxies. Focus will be put on dating methods and how to build chronologies for palaeoenvironmental records. In the practical part students will get a detailed understanding of selected environmental proxies and their interpretation by analysis, critically evaluation and presentation of case studies. Hands-on work will comprise a simply practical application of the radiocarbon method for building a chronology (age-depth model) for a sediment sequence. The results will be presented by each individual and critically evaluated in the class. In addition, an excursion will provide basic skills in field work and sample collection.