The gullies in the vicinity of Neple (Podlaska Lowland, eastern Poland) are relatively young and were created due to the land use and climate changes. The aim of the research was to determine the variability of selected alluvial-diluvial fans occurring in the Bug River valley and their age using interdisciplinary methods (e.g. absolute dating, geochemical analyzes, cartographic data). Geological mapping and several drillings (both within the fans, valleys or gullies bottoms and glacial or fluvioglacial plateaus) were done. Historical data dealing with the human economic activity in the region were analyzed. The obtained radiocarbon dating and geochemical features of sediments building the alluvial and diluvial fans proved that these forms are not older than some 500 years. Due to the lateral movement of the Bug River channel only some of the forms are preserved in the area under study. The rest of them disappeared due to the fluvial erosion.
The Neple site is located on a marginal moraine between the valleys of Bug and Krzna rivers in the southern part of the Polish-Belarusian border area. A glacial diamicton is overlain there by glaciofluvial sand and gravel. The glacial diamicton is laminated and, based on petrographic examination, it was ascribed both to the Sanian 2 Glaciation (Elsterian) and the Warta Stadial ice-sheet of the Odranian Glaciation (Saalian). The sediments were glaciotectonically deformed during readvance of the Warta Stadial icesheet. A local stress field was from the northwest and north but it partly encountered resistance from the glacial lobe located in the present-day river-mouth of the Krzna River. Similar glaciotectonic deformations are common also along the southwestern slope of the present Bug River valley, demarcating the maximum extent of the Warta Stadial (Saalian) ice-sheet in this area.
The wooden structures unearthed in 2012 during archaeological excavation in the courtyard of the Museum of Archaeology and History in Elbląg have been dated using the dendrochronological method to the period between 1245 and 1302, which allows them to be considered to be parts of a Teutonic fortress. The remains of the wooden building located directly on the prehistoric lacustrine sediments created a unique opportunity to reconstruct the near-shore sedimentation of the Drużno Lake. Geological, malacological and palynological methods were applied during the investigation. The results, compared with the ranges of both the Drużno Lake and the Vistula Lagoon, known from previous studies of the region, allowed the correlation of a phase of a deep lake with the “Roman Period”. Rapid shallowing of the lake occurred in the “Migration Period”. The final disappearance of the lake in the area of modern Elbląg occurred in the early Middle Ages.
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