The soils of Russian Altai highlands were used as a paleoenvironmental archive, as a source of dating material, and as a chronostratigraphic marker to describe Holocene environmental change in the studied area. Based on calibration intervals of 14C dates obtained for buried humus horizons (11 buried soils in 6 studied soil-sedimentary sequences) and some dates from pendants of contemporary soils, following stages of pedogenesis were recorded in studied soil-sedimentary systems and surface soils: 6.4 – 11.5 ky cal BP; about 4.9-5.3 cal BP; 2.5-3.8 cal BP; 0.6 – 1.2 cal BP. All studied surface soils in the basins nowadays develop in cold, ultra-continental water deficit conditions: Skeletic Kastanozems Cambic, Skeletic Cambisols Protocalcic, Skeletic Cambic Calcisol Yermic. The most extreme conditions of soil formation within Holocene were within the last 1-2 kyr. All buried soils were formed in better conditions, more balanced in water, with higher biological activity, mostly within steppe or forest-steppe landscapes. Cryogenic features had been insisting all over the Holocene till nowadays. Water demandant cryogenic features are met in buried soils up to the age of 1-2 ky cal BP. In the last millennia cryogenic processes are suppressed, water demandant features gave way to those which can be formed in contemporary water deficit conditions: simple fissures, frost sorting, and shattering. At lower levels (Kuraj basin) more or less arid cold steppe conditions insisted within the most part of Holocene. Initial stages of soil formation were often ground water affected, or at least shortly waterlogged. At the highest positions humid and relatively warm Early Holocene stage of forest pedogenesis is recorded for the beginning of Holocene, and a Late Holocene (last 3-4 kyr) cold humid phase, presumably under mountain tundra and/or alpines. Microsedimentary intra-soil record in carbonatehumus pendants imprints fine fluctuations of soil water regime at initial stages of soil formation, controlled by local topography, and climatic changes in the second half of Holocene. General trends of environmental changes in the region recorded in soil and soil sedimentary systems are in well correspondence with other records of paleonvironment.
The history of applying soil micromorphology in archaeology in Russia and abroad is overviewed. The main objectives of soil micromorphological analysis of archaeological objects are specified. The possibilities offered by this method are illustrated by the example of a micromorphological study of a cultural layer of an Early Medieval settlement. The prospects of archaeological soil micromorphology development are outlined.
Paleopedology, the study of soils developed on ancient landscapes (Yaalon, 1971), was born in Russia through the efforts of Boris B. Polynov (1927), but considering the previous work done by Vasilli V. Dokuchaev in 1883 (Dokuchaev, 1967) and later with the support of Constantin C. Nikiforoff (1943). The Commission on Paleopedology was established in 1965, in Denver, USA, by Dan Yaalon and Hans van Baren (Retallack, 2013) during the 7th Congress of the International Association for Quaternary Research (INQUA) and later, in 1968, the Commission was affiliated to the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS). After the Denver conference, the Commission published a volume with research papers focused on the recognition and classification of paleosols, methods of dating, and soil stratigraphy (Yaalon, 1971). This volume was the beginning of an extensive series of the Commission publications in different special issues of international and national scientific media. Two of these collections were published in open-access Mexican geological journals: Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas v. 20 no. 3 (2003) and v. 21 no. 1 (2004), and Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, v. 64 no. 1 and 64 no. 2 (2012). The current issue is a continuation of this series. There are two concepts necessary for understanding paleosols. The first is the use of the uniformitarian principle, which suggests that past geologic processes are similar to those acting today on the Earth’s surface. In other words, the basis of modern soil geography and soil genesis is used as directly analogous to reconstruct ancient environments and landscapes. This approach is more precise when applied to Quaternary paleosols and more limited to pre-Cambrian or Paleozoic paleosols, as the environmental conditions under which they were formed are pretty different from the modern ones (Retallack, 2001). The second concept is “soil memory” (Targulian and Goriachkin, 2004), related to a set of properties that can remember ancient environmental conditions. These properties result from pedogenetic processes and soil-forming factors and are time-resistant to environmental changes remaining stable during extended periods (Targulian and Goriachkin, 2004). In recent years, paleopedology has extended its applications to reconstruct past climates, establish variations in the atmospheric composition, trace the ecosystem evolution, and identify geomorphological changes (e.g., Cerling, 1991; Retallack, 1998, 2009; Goudi, 1990; Klinge et al., 2022). Some efforts have also been made to develop models to quantify pedogenetic trends associated with environmental change (e.g., Yaalon, 1975; Sheldon and Tabor, 2009). An essential application of paleopedology has been devoted to solving archaeological problems, as soils can be considered repositories of human activities: agriculture, forestry, material for construction or ceramic production, dwelling and householding (Holliday, 2009; Costa et al., 2021; Yalçın et al., 2021). The impact of past anthropogenic activities has been recorded in the soil memory through time: since the first hunter and gatherers groups to the industrial societies. However, the relationship between humans and their environment (and vice versa) is complex and demands the application of different methodologies and the study of in-site and off-site approaches (Butzer, 2008), which integrates the information directly recovered in the archaeological excavation and that from the surrounding areas. In this sense, the paleosol-archaeological investigation has a more solid interpretation. In June 2021, the Paleopedology Commission of the IUSS, the Paleopedology Working Group of the INQUA, and the Institute of Geology of the UNAM organized a three-day online meeting with scientific sessions. The meeting topics related to the link between paleosols, the history of human interactions, and the environment. This special issue was launched as a result of this meeting. The articles included here aim to improve our understanding of the materials used for ancient constructions also past human interactions with the environment.
A set of 121 radiocarbon and OSL dates has been compiled from the Upper Dnieper River and tributary valleys, Western European Russia. Each date was attributed according to geomorphic/sedimentological events and classes of fluvial activity. Summed probability density functions for each class were used to establish phases of increasing and reducing fluvial activity. The oldest detected reduction of fluvial activity was probably due to glacial damming at LGM. Within the Holocene three palaeohydrological epochs of millennial-scale were found: (1) high activity at 12,000–8,000 cal BP marked by large river palaeochannels; (2) low activity at 8,000–3,000 cal BP marked by formation of zonal-type soils on -floodplains; short episodes of high floods occurred between 6,500—4,400 cal BP; (3) contrasting hydrological oscillations since 3,000 cal BP with periods of high floods between 3,000–2,300 (2,000) and 900–100 cal BP separated by long interval of low floods 2,300 (2,000)-900 cal BP when floodplains were not inundated — zonal-type soils were developing and permanent settlements existed on floodplains. In the last millennium, four centennial-scale intervals were found: high flooding intervals are mid-11–mid-15th century and mid-17–mid-20th century. Intervals of flood activity similar to the present-day were: mid-15–mid-17th century and since mid-19th century till present. In the context of palaeohydrological changes, discussed are selected palaeogeographic issues such as: position of the glacial boundary at LGM, role of changing amounts of river runoff in the Black Sea level changes, floodplain occupation by Early Medieval population.
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