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Insights into the late Holocene vegetation history of the East European forest-steppe: case study Sudzha (Kursk region, Russia)

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Abstract

Today, the East European forest-steppe is an agricultural landscape with very few remains of its former natural vegetation. The history of the transformation from natural vegetation to a human-made landscape in the area of Sudzha (Kursk region, Russia) is studied here. We compare the off-site pollen record Sudzha with three on-site pollen records obtained from the archaeological site Kurilovka-2. The sediment core Sudzha covering the last 2,500 years was taken from an oxbow lake in an area with archaeological sites of the early Slavonic period (3rd–8th centuries ce). The Sudzha pollen record indicates dominance of broadleaf forests and meadow steppes in the area from 2,500 to 200 cal year bp with two major settlement phases one between ~ 2,000 and 1,600 cal year bp (~ 50 bce to 350 ce) and the other between 1,100 and 600 cal year bp (850 and 1350 ce) followed by a total deforestation and transformation to an agricultural landscape over the last 200–300 years. Similar changes in the last 300–400 years are indicated by the three on-site pollen records. It is noteworthy, however, that the record Sudzha does not provide an intensive signal of human impact during the 5th–8th centuries ce. This points to a quite restricted spatial influence of the Early Slavonic settlements on the vegetation, leading to a relatively low contribution of palynological anthropogenic indicators to the regional pollen rain signal.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Maria Belen Tomaselli for sampling and lab preparation of pollen from the Sudzha sediment core, the editor and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and Laura Sutcliffe for polishing the English. This study was partly supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, research projects 16-35-60083 and 16-36-00293, and by the Georg-August-University of Göttingen (Germany). Reconstruction of forest coverage performed by E. Novenko was supported by Russian Science Foundation (Grant 16-17-10045).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Palynology and Climate Dynamics, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Untere Karspüle 2, 37073, Göttingen, Germany

    Lyudmila S. Shumilovskikh

  2. Laboratory of Taxonomy and Phylogeny of Plants, Faculty of Biology, Tomsk State University, Lenin Ave 36, Tomsk, 634050, Russia

    Lyudmila S. Shumilovskikh

  3. Department of Archaeology of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages, Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Uljanova Str. 19, Moscow, 119036, Russia

    Vlasta Ye. Rodinkova

  4. Department of Ecology and Environmental Studies, Institute of Ecology and Geography, Siberian Federal University, Svobodny Pr. 79, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia

    Aleksandra Rodionova

  5. Municipal Budget Organization “Kolomna Archaeology Centre”, Kremlevskaya Street 5, Kolomna, 140400, Russia

    Alla Troshina

  6. Department Geobotany, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, 1-12 Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Ekaterina Ershova

  7. Institute of International Relations, History and Oriental Studies, Kazan Federal University, 1/55 Pushkina, Kazan, 420008, Russia

    Ekaterina Ershova

  8. Department of Physical Geography and Landscape Science, Faculty of Geography, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory 1, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Elena Novenko

  9. Laboratory of Evolutional Geography, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science, Staromonetny Lane, 29, Moscow, 119017, Russia

    Elena Novenko

  10. Laboratory of Radiocarbon Dating & Electronic microscopy, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science, Staromonetny Lane, 29, Moscow, 119017, Russia

    Elya Zazovskaya

  11. Department of Soil Geography and Evolution, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science, Staromonetny Lane, 29, Moscow, 119107, Russia

    Svetlana A. Sycheva

  12. Department of Preservation of Archaeological Heritage, Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Uljanova Str., 19, Moscow, 119036, Russia

    Dmitry I. Kiselev

  13. Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research, Viktoriastraße 26/28, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Frank Schlütz

  14. Department Man and Environment, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Specks Hof, Reichsstraße 4-6, 04109, Leipzig, Germany

    Jens Schneeweiß

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  1. Lyudmila S. Shumilovskikh
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  2. Vlasta Ye. Rodinkova
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  3. Aleksandra Rodionova
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  5. Ekaterina Ershova
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  6. Elena Novenko
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  7. Elya Zazovskaya
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  8. Svetlana A. Sycheva
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Correspondence to Lyudmila S. Shumilovskikh.

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Shumilovskikh, L.S., Rodinkova, V.Y., Rodionova, A. et al. Insights into the late Holocene vegetation history of the East European forest-steppe: case study Sudzha (Kursk region, Russia). Veget Hist Archaeobot 28, 513–528 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-018-00711-4

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