Bobrovsky M.V.  

Spatial-temporal uneven economic activity in the Late Holocene in the center of European Russia

Area of the center of the European Russia has a long history of economic development. At the same time, it is still unknown what anthropogenic factors and to what extent determined the dynamics of ecosystems and landscapes in the past.
In European Russia, during the second half of the Holocene the main farming systems were slash-and-burn and different versions of shifting and arable cultivation. All these systems involved the use of fire and arable tools to varying degrees. Burning was a main element of slash-and-burn and shifting agricultural systems and it also used for clearing of forest areas for permanent arable lands.
The distribution of agriculture was accompanied by specific soil changes and the charcoal inflow into mineral soil. In addition, agriculture contributed to the intensification of erosion processes. Therefore, an analysis of the structure of daytime soils and gully-ravine sediments allows us to determine the presence of impacts associated with agriculture in the past. Charcoal which was moved to arable horizons and ravine-gully deposits can be used to date the time of human impacts.
We studied soils and sediments in the territories of the Kaluga, Ryazan regions and the Republic of Mordovia. We received data on the times of large-scale clearing and burning in these regions. The research results show spatial and temporal unevenness in agricultural development of the studied areas in the center of European Russia. For most sites, there were three main peaks in burning and clearing: the first peak occurred in different cultures of the early Iron Age, the second (most ambitious) was note presumably during the Slavic colonization, and the third was in the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.


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