Место издания:Schrijen-Lippertz, Voerendaal Maastricht
Первая страница:123
Последняя страница:123
Аннотация:In the forest-steppe zone of European Russia, the first millennium AD was a time of major changes in the populations, agricultural technologies, social structure, and settlement
patterns. A heart of the forest-steppe zone, the Mid-Volga region underwent a transition from a non-populated, mainly forested landscape of first centuries AD, to a highly
deforested agricultural landscape of the Volga Bulgarian state by the 11th century AD. Within several centuries, the landscape was transformed by shifting cultivation, wood and
ore extraction, the formation of pastures and road networks. These transformations coincided with the major climatic changes, accelerating the effect of Medieval Warm Period
(MWP) on soils and ecosystems. A combination of archaeological, stratigraphic, palynological, phytolith, and pedoanthracological analyses allowed us to reconstruct the following
stadial landscapes and land use patterns: 1) the initial colonization of floodplains in the 2nd-4th cent. AD; 2) colonization of river terraces in the forested landscape, dominated
by linden forests, by agriculturalists of the Imen’kovo culture; 3) an increase in the proportion of birch, pine and spruce in the forest, and a drastic reduction in the proportion of
late-successional species after several cycles of slash-and-burn cultivation; 4) abandonment of the area for two centuries in the 7th cent AD; re-growth of abandoned swiddens
and pastures by an early-successional forest; 5) at the beginning of the MWP, an anomalous wind activity caused mass tree uprooting, fuel build-up and fires, promoting the formation
of a post-pyrogenic pine-spruce forest; 6) re-colonization of the landscape by a sedentary population of the Volga Bulgarian state, clearing the forest for large settlements
and permanent fields, establishment of large-scale road networks and vast pastures. Increased temperatures caused melanization of organic remains in cultivated fields and
pastures and the formation of Chernozemic soils in the treeless areas already within the first centuries following the land clearance.