scholarly journals 6200 years of human activities and environmental change in the northern central Alps

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens von Scheffer ◽  
Annika Lange ◽  
François De Vleeschouwer ◽  
Joachim Schrautzer ◽  
Ingmar Unkel
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Enrichment Factors ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Central Alps ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Palaeoenvironmental Change ◽  
Metallurgical Activities

Abstract. In this study, we combine erosion and anthropogenic proxies (Ti, Pb) from calibrated portable XRF with pollen and radiocarbon chronologies in peat from mires of the Kleinwalser Valley (Kleinwalsertal, Vorarlberg, Austria) to reconstruct palaeoenvironmental change and human impact in the northern central Alps. Favoured by a wetter climate, two analysed mires formed 6200 years ago in a densely forested valley. Landscape opening suggests that the first anthropogenic impact emerged around 5700 to 5300 cal BP. Contemporaneously, lead enrichment factors (Pb EFs) indicate metallurgical activities, predating the earliest archaeological evidence in the region. Pollen and erosion proxies show that large-scale deforestation and land use by agro-pastoralists took place from the mid- to late Bronze Age (3500 to 2800 cal BP). This period was directly followed by a prominent peak in Pb EF, pointing to metallurgical activities again. After 200 cal CE, a rising human impact was interrupted by climatic deteriorations in the first half of the 6th century CE, probably linked to the Late Antique Little Ice Age. The use of the characteristic Pb EF pattern of modern pollution as a time marker allows us to draw conclusions about the last centuries. These saw the influence of the Walser people, arriving in the valley after 1300 cal CE. Later, the beginning of tourism is reflected in increased erosion signals after 1950 cal CE. Our study demonstrates that prehistoric humans were intensively shaping the Kleinwalser Valley's landscape, well before the arrival of the Walser people. It also demonstrates the importance of palaeoenvironmental multiproxy studies to fill knowledge gaps where archaeological evidence is lacking.

scholarly journals Holocene vegetation, fire and land use dynamics at Lake Svityaz, an agriculturally marginal site in northwestern Ukraine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Schwörer ◽  
Erika Gobet ◽  
Jacqueline F. N. van Leeuwen ◽  
Sarah Bögli ◽  
Rachel Imboden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Mixed Forest ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Agricultural Activity ◽  
Fire Dynamics

AbstractObserving natural vegetation dynamics over the entire Holocene is difficult in Central Europe, due to pervasive and increasing human disturbance since the Neolithic. One strategy to minimize this limitation is to select a study site in an area that is marginal for agricultural activity. Here, we present a new sediment record from Lake Svityaz in northwestern Ukraine. We have reconstructed regional and local vegetation and fire dynamics since the Late Glacial using pollen, spores, macrofossils and charcoal. Boreal forest composed of Pinus sylvestris and Betula with continental Larix decidua and Pinus cembra established in the region around 13,450 cal bp, replacing an open, steppic landscape. The first temperate tree to expand was Ulmus at 11,800 cal bp, followed by Quercus, Fraxinus excelsior, Tilia and Corylus ca. 1,000 years later. Fire activity was highest during the Early Holocene, when summer solar insolation reached its maximum. Carpinus betulus and Fagus sylvatica established at ca. 6,000 cal bp, coinciding with the first indicators of agricultural activity in the region and a transient climatic shift to cooler and moister conditions. Human impact on the vegetation remained initially very low, only increasing during the Bronze Age, at ca. 3,400 cal bp. Large-scale forest openings and the establishment of the present-day cultural landscape occurred only during the past 500 years. The persistence of highly diverse mixed forest under absent or low anthropogenic disturbance until the Early Middle Ages corroborates the role of human impact in the impoverishment of temperate forests elsewhere in Central Europe. The preservation or reestablishment of such diverse forests may mitigate future climate change impacts, specifically by lowering fire risk under warmer and drier conditions.

scholarly journals Redefining the role of metal production during the Bronze Age of south-eastern Iberia. The mines of eastern Sierra Morena

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
Luis Arboledas-Martínez ◽  
Eva Alarcón-García
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
New Mineral ◽  
Metal Production ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Sierra Morena ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Metallurgical Activities

Researchers have traditionally paid little attention to mining by Bronze Age communities in the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula. This has changed recently due to the identification of new mineral exploitations from this period during the archaeo-mining surveys carried out in the Rumblar and Jándula valleys in the Sierra Morena Mountains between 2009-2014, as well as the excavation of the José Martín Palacios mine (Baños de la Encina, Jaén). The analysis of the archaeological evidence and the archaeometric results reveal the importance of mining and metallurgical activities undertaken by the communities that inhabited the region between 2200 and 900 cal. BC, when it became one of the most important copper and silver production centers during the Late Prehistory of south-eastern Iberia.

Organic geochemical and palynological evidence for Holocene natural and anthropogenic environmental change at Lake Dojran (Macedonia/Greece)

The Holocene ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1103-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Thienemann ◽  
Alessia Masi ◽  
Stephanie Kusch ◽  
Laura Sadori ◽  
Stephan John ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Anthropogenic Activity ◽  
Lipid Biomarker ◽  
The Middle Ages

In this study, we present lipid biomarker and palynological data for a sediment core from Lake Dojran (Macedonia/Greece), which covers the entire Holocene period. We analyzed vascular plant-derived n-alkanes, combustion-derived polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), fecal steroids, and bacterial and archaeal glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) lipids in concert with microcharcoal and pollen assemblages to reconstruct climatic, environmental, and human impact in the Dojran catchment and the greater Dojran area. Overall, our results suggest a relationship between anthropogenic activity and environmental/climatic change since increased human impact corresponds to phases of higher humidity and high lake levels at Lake Dojran. During the early Holocene, the record reveals increasing temperatures and humidity and concurrent increasing vegetation cover and runoff/soil erosion, respectively. Following a thermal maximum during the middle early Holocene, temperatures decrease gradually until present. The middle-Holocene at Lake Dojran is characterized by relatively stable environmental conditions followed by greater climatic instability and strong anthropogenic overprint during the late-Holocene. The fecal stanol record reveals phases of increased human impact during the early Bronze Age, the late Bonze/early Iron Age, and the Middle Ages. A phase of low stanol and PAH concentrations from the late Iron Age until the early Middle Ages is either related to ecosystem changes and/or changes in settlement pattern since concurrent pollen data indicate intensified land use. Human impact re-intensified during the Middle Ages with some variability probably related to climatic variations of the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ and the ‘Little Ice Age’.

scholarly journals Orbital changes, variation in solar activity and increased anthropogenic activities: controls on the Holocene flood frequency in the Lake Ledro area, Northern Italy

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1193-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Vannière ◽  
M. Magny ◽  
S. Joannin ◽  
A. Simonneau ◽  
S. B. Wirth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Short Intervals ◽  
Middle Holocene ◽  
Early And Middle Holocene

Abstract. Two lacustrine sediment cores from Lake Ledro in northern Italy were studied to produce chronologies of flood events for the past 10 000 yr. For this purpose, we have developed an automatic method that objectively identifies the sedimentary imprint of river floods in the downstream lake basin. The method was based on colour data extracted from processed core photographs, and the count data were analysed to capture the flood signal. Flood frequency and reconstructed sedimentary dynamics were compared with lake-level changes and pollen inferred vegetation dynamics. The results suggest a record marked by low flood frequency during the early and middle Holocene (10 000–4500 cal BP). Only modest increases during short intervals are recorded at ca. 8000, 7500, and 7100 cal BP. After 4500–4000 cal BP, the record shows a shift toward increased flood frequency. With the exception of two short intervals around 2900–2500 and 1800–1400 cal BP, which show a slightly reduced number of floods, the trend of increasing flood frequency prevailed until the 20th century, reaching a maximum between the 16th and the 19th centuries. Brief-flood frequency increases recorded during the early and middle Holocene can be attributed to cold climatic oscillations. On a centennial time scale, major changes in flood frequency, such as those observed after ca. 4500/4000 and 500 cal BP, can be attributed to large-scale climatic changes such as the Neo-glacial and Little Ice Age, which are under orbital and possibly solar control. However, in the Bronze Age and during the Middle Ages and modern times, forest clearing and land use probably partially control the flood activity.

Is There Anybody Out There? A Reconsideration of the Environmental Evidence from the Breiddin Hillfort, Powys, Wales

2001 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C Buckland ◽  
Mike Parker Pearson ◽  
Andy Wigley ◽  
Maureen A Girling
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Natural Water ◽  
Water Reservoir ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Natural Pond ◽  
Evidence Of Absence

Researchers have often assumed that the Iron Age hillforts of the Welsh borders were densely occupied centres of population. One of these is the Breiddin, occupied in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, which was excavated in 1969–76. At its centre was a natural water reservoir, Buckbean Pond, which provided a radiocarbon dated sequence of deposition contemporary with the later prehistoric occupation of the hillfort. The beetle assemblage from these deposits was never properly studied or published due to Maureen Girling's death and, as a result, its implications for understanding the human impact on the pond's immediate environment were not fully appreciated. Despite the remains of four-post structures close to the pond and of roundhouses and associated deposits in the vicinity, both flora and insect faunas indicate a quiet natural pond with little disturbance other than casual grazing by animals. This ‘evidence of absence’ does not square with the archaeological evidence which is here interpreted as deriving from human activity which was neither permanent nor intensive.

scholarly journals Redefining the role of metal production during the Bronze Age of south-eastern Iberia. The mines of eastern Sierra Morena

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
Luis Arboledas-Martínez ◽  
Eva Alarcón-García
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
New Mineral ◽  
Metal Production ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Sierra Morena ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Metallurgical Activities

Researchers have traditionally paid little attention to mining by Bronze Age communities in the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula. This has changed recently due to the identification of new mineral exploitations from this period during the archaeo-mining surveys carried out in the Rumblar and Jándula valleys in the Sierra Morena Mountains between 2009-2014, as well as the excavation of the José Martín Palacios mine (Baños de la Encina, Jaén). The analysis of the archaeological evidence and the archaeometric results reveal the importance of mining and metallurgical activities undertaken by the communities that inhabited the region between 2200 and 900 cal. BC, when it became one of the most important copper and silver production centers during the Late Prehistory of south-eastern Iberia.

scholarly journals Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski’s horses

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 360 (6384) ◽  
pp. 111-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charleen Gaunitz ◽  
Antoine Fages ◽  
Kristian Hanghøj ◽  
Anders Albrechtsen ◽  
Naveed Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Domestic Horses ◽  
Horse Domestication

The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski’s horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.

scholarly journals The prehistoric human impact on slope development at the archaeological site in Smólsk (Kuyavian Lakeland)

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Kittel
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Buried Soils ◽  
Slope Deposits ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractPeriods of intense human impact on the relief and lithology of the area of the Smólsk site were recorded during geoarchaeological research accompanying archaeological field work. The phases of occupation of the area are known in detail from the results of the large-scale archaeological research of the site. The slope deposits with buried soils were recorded at the site area and researched in detail with the use of sedimentological, geochemical and micromorphological analyses. Beside geochronological deterioration, the chronology of the artefacts found in layers played an important role in the strict recognition of the age of deposits. The lower part of the studied slope cover is constituted by deluvium and the upper part by tillage diamicton. The origin and the development of the slope deposits are correlated with the phases of an intense prehistoric human impact as defined by the archaeological research. Four main phases of acceleration of slope processes were documented at the site and date to the Early Neolithic, the Middle Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.

Reply to Doppler et al. ‘Response to “The fall of Phaethon: a Greco-Roman geomyth preserves the memory of a meteorite impact in Bavaria (south-east Germany) (Antiquity 84)”’

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (327) ◽  
pp. 278-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Rappenglück ◽  
Michael A. Rappenglück ◽  
Kord Ernstson ◽  
Werner Mayer ◽  
Andreas Neumair ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Osl Dating ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Meteorite Impact ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Last Ice Age ◽  
The Bronze Age

We acknowledge the observations of Doppler et al. on our paper and we are grateful to Antiquity's editor for this opportunity to reply to their objections.Firstly, it should be noted that we have not claimed that the Chiemsee once included the Tüttensee. We agree that the region in which both lakes lie was glacially formed. But while Lake Chiemsee is the result of the last Ice Age the Tüttensee basin originates from a much later Holocene meteorite impact. We do not use the myth of Phaeton to date this event that is known as the Chiemgau impact. On the contrary we estimate from archaeological evidence and OSL dating that the event occurred between 2200 and 800 BC, i.e. the Bronze Age (Rappenglück et al. 2010: 436).We go on to discuss parallels between the independent dating of the Chiemgau impact and the possible time frame of the myth (Rappenglück et al. 2010: 435–37).

Investigating Burnt Mounds in Clydesdale during Motorway Construction

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
John A Atkinson ◽  
Camilla Dickson ◽  
Jane Downes ◽  
Paul Robins ◽  
David Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Short Account ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Bronze Age

Summary Two small burnt mounds were excavated as part of the programme to mitigate the impact of motorway construction in the Crawford area. The excavations followed a research strategy designed to address questions of date and function. This paper surveys the various competing theories about burnt mounds and how the archaeological evidence was evaluated against those theories. Both sites produced radiocarbon dates from the Bronze Age and evidence to suggest that they were cooking places. In addition, a short account is presented of two further burnt mounds discovered during the construction of the motorway in Annandale.

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