Soil moisture conditions in past landscapes: methods, analysis and archaeological implications. A case study from Kobarid region (Slovenia). (original) (raw)
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A Geospatial Method for Estimating Soil Moisture Variability in Prehistoric Agricultural Landscapes
PLoS One, 2019
Prehistoric peoples chose farming locations based on environmental conditions, such as soil moisture, which plays a crucial role in crop production. Ancestral Pueblo communities of the central Mesa Verde region became increasingly reliant on maize agriculture for their subsistence needs by AD 900. Prehistoric agriculturalists (e.g., Ancestral Pueblo farmers) were dependent on having sufficient soil moisture for successful plant growth. To better understand the quality of farmland in terms of soil moisture, this study develops a static geospatial soil moisture model, the Soil Moisture Proxy Model, which uses soil and topo-graphic variables to estimate soil moisture potential across a watershed. The model is applied to the semi-arid region of the Goodman watershed in the central Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. We evaluate the model by comparing the Goodman watershed output to two other watersheds and to soil moisture sensor values. The simple framework can be used in other regions of the world, where water is also an important limiting factor for farming. The general outcome of this research is an improved understanding of potential farmland and human-environmental relationships across the local landscape.
17th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM2017, Water Resources. Forest, Marine and Ocean Ecosystems, 2017
Humid and arid climatic cycles during Sub-Atlantic time in the forest-steppe area of the East European Plain were studied based on soils buried under archaeological sites of different time. The shift of the boundary between steppe and forest patches is recorded in the shift of the studied soils: Luvic Greyzemic Fhaeozems of the forest patches and Luvic Chernozems under steppe environment. The complex research is based on archaeological investigation, assemblages of morphological (marco-, mesoand micromorphological), microbiomorphic (pollen, phytoliths) and analytical features. Climatic rhythms in the Sub-Atlantic period entailed the transformation of the whole complex of landscape parameters, including soil features: development of Agric horizon, greyzemic features, characteristics of humus and carbonate profiles, C/N ratio, soil microbiomorphic complex, etc. A group of stable and dynamic indicators of climatic shifts was established by ranking soil features in their degree of transformation in various environmental conditions.
2005
RIASSUNTO Sono note in archeologia le possibilità offerte dallo studio dei passaggi tonali del suolo nudo (damp-mark): il loro verificarsi infatti può essere indice di presenza nel primo sottosuolo di strutture archeologiche o fossati che rispettivamente inibiscono o agevolano lassorbimento dellacqua piovana e la risalita dellumidità. Lo studio del diverso grado di assorbimento idrico di un suolo diviene quindi di primaria utilità per lindividuazione di siti archeologici non emergenti in contesti extraurbani. Nel presente lavoro verrà presentato un indice del suolo (S.L.I.) per dati iperspettrali MIVIS che mira a costituire un supporto nellidentificazione di tracce sul suolo non vegetato, permettendo lenfatizzazione dellumidità o della aridità di una porzione di terreno. ABSTRACT The possibilities offered by studying the tonal variations of the bare soil (damp-mark) are well known in archaeology: their existence in fact can be an indication of the presence in the subsoil ...
Using landscape in the Middle Ages in the light of interdisciplinary research. Proceedings of the 6th International Scientific Conference on Mediaeval Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology , ZIA 18, 2021
The paper presents archaeological indicators that testify to the influence of environmental factors on the formation (favourable climate, proximity to water and forests) and reorganization of settlements (due to floods – alluvial deposits), as well as, deposition of colluvial sediments that covered the already abandoned settlement. In it, we tried to connect the facts identified by archaeological research with the findings of interdisciplinary paleoclimatic research and with the research on climate and weather, based on direct and indirect data from written historical sources from the wider Carpathian Basin. The late medieval archaeologically explored settlement at the position of Buzadovec – Vojvodice (north-western Croatia) is presented. The settlement was formed at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century in a lowland landscape, not far from the river course. Frequent floods or a major flood in the late 13th or early 14th century caused the position of the older settlement to be abandoned and moved to the slightly elevated terrain. The settlement was continuously inhabited until about the middle of the 15th century. The reason for the cessation of the settlement’s existence has not been determined, but an interesting phenomenon of soil erosion of the neighbouring hill has been recognized, which caused the cultural layers of the abandoned late medieval settlement to be covered with meter-thick deposits of sterile clay.
Neolithic Archaeology and Soilscapes Körös Area, Hungary
SAA Current Research Online, 2013
For the past several years, an international team of researchers has been investigating prehistoric settlements and human-environmental interactions in eastern Hungary, as part of the Neolithic Archaeology and Soilscapes Körös Area (NASKA) project. Directed by Roderick Salisbury (University of Leicester) and Gábor Bácsmegi (Békés County Museum), the project is examining several small Neolithic settlements and their landscape at Csárdaszállás in Békés County, Hungary. In autumn 2011, the team conducted magnetometer surveys and intensive surface collection over two small Late Neolithic (ca. 5000 BC) settlements, and took an environmental monolith from a nearby defunct channel of the Körös River.
Topographic Wetness Index and Prehistoric Land Use
2008
A digital terrain model (DTM) of an area of approximately 100 km2 in East Jutland, Denmark, has been created based on information from the oldest available topographic map from the second half of the 19th century. On the basis of this model, a topographic wetness index for a 10 x 10 m cell grid has been calculated. In this index a threshold value has been estimated, which corresponds to an arable/non-arable classification of the area. This was done with the help of information from economic maps dating about 1800 AD. Finally it is argued that DTM’s generated on topographic maps drawn in 1:20,000 are too coarse for detailed modelling of land-use in large parts of prehistory. This conclusion has been achieved by comparing the modelled area with registered observations of archaeological finds and sites.
Eurasian Soil Science, 2017
⎯The construction of the Volga-Kama cascade of water reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations in the middle of the 20th century resulted in the inundation of vast areas and the development of abrasion along the shores that threatens many monuments of the archaeological and cultural heritage. The soils buried under northernmost kurgans of the Lugovskaya culture dating back to the 15th-14th centuries BC (kurgan Komintern I) were studied on the surface of the second terrace of the Kama River near its confluence with the Volga River. Burial sites of kurgan Komintern III were subjected to destruction in 1981, and archaeological excavations of kurgan Komintern II were performed in 2008. The danger of complete disappearance of these archaeological sites necessitated their thorough study with the use of multiple methods, including special paleosol studies. The soils buried under the kurgans ceased to be active components of the soil cover about 3500 years ago. They preserve information on the paleoenvironmental conditions before their burying. The analysis of morphological features and physical, physicochemical, and chemical properties of the buried soils attests to their chernozemic nature. Background surface soils that have passed through the entire cycle of the Holocene pedogenesis have evolved since that time into gray forest soils (Luvic Greyzemic Phaeozems) under forest vegetation. These soils are characterized by the increased acidity of the surface horizons (pH КСl 4.3) and the development of lessivage. Data on the coefficients of mineral weathering in the buried paleosols and background surface soils attest to the identical precipitation both for the surface and buried soils in the Middle and Late Holocene.
The study examines the early medieval paleosol (4th–6th centuries AD) and background soil at the fortified settlement of Ust-Utyak-1 located in the forest-steppe area of the Middle Tobol region. Differences in soil type were discovered. In the last 1300-1500 years, the development of forest-steppe chernozems shows a tendency towards exceeding aridity, resulting in the evolvement of leached chernozems into typical chernozems. Comparative analysis of the morphological structure and chemical properties of the soils under study gives reason to believe that the environmental conditions of the 4th–6th centuries AD were marked by greater humidity and heat supply than the present day. According to the historical and archaeological data, this time coincides with the flourishing of the Bakal Culture which declined at the end of that period.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2019
Barrows play an important role in paleoenvironmental studies. This research, conducted on macromorphology (descriptive), micromorphology (thin-section), physical and chemical properties of a burial mound necropolis located in the western part of Ukraine (near Bukivna village), aimed to reconstruct the climatic conditions and landscape of the area during the Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze Ages, when they were erected. The analysis of pedogenic and post-depositional processes has made it possible to determine the evolution of soils beginning around 4000 BP. Three phases of change in vegetation, climate, and soil conditions have been distinguished. Between 6000 and 4200 BP, the brown forest soil formed at the beginning of Subboreal period. Later, the formation of chernozems (Chernozems) took place between 4200 and 3300 BP, chernozems (Chernozems) formed, at an increasing rate as meadow and meadow-forest which led to the continental climate spread through the area, while in the Forecarpahians forest areas their transformation into gray forest soils (Luvic Phaeozems) is visible, and podzolized brown soils (Dystric or Haplic Cambisols) developed about 150 BP in a cooler and much more humid climate conditions than were present in the beginning of the Subboreal period. From the present study it was concluded that post-depositional processes, such as podzolization, lessivage, and illimerization, change the original properties of soils, while others, like the activity of fauna, result in krotovinas filled with original humus, and makes it easier to recognize fossil soils.