Fossil continental molluscs have not hitherto been regarded as reliable paleoenvironmental indicators. Little was known about their ecological requirements or their position in characteristic biomes of the Quaternary climatic cycle, for instance in the loess steppe. Only recent analyses of their assemblages in a broad environmental context have shown that they are indicative of a number of important environmental phenomena in the same way as pollen grains or vertebrate remains. and Vojen Ložek.