Pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal and geochemical analyses of sediments from Lake Salęt (NE Poland) were used to reconstruct vegetation changes related to the activity of the West Balt tribes during the Iron Age, in the period between the second half of the 7th century BC and the beginning of the 10th century AD. We distinguished five phases of human impact on environment. Woodland clearing around the studied lake started at the end of the 7th century BC. The most characteristic feature of this area during the whole Iron Age was a very high representation of semi-natural Betula woodlands, which was probably linked to a shifting agriculture. This type of land use lasted for over 1,500 years, until the second half of the 9th century AD. The greatest reduction in Betula woodlands took place between cal. years 650 and 450 BC. Its regeneration took place after ca. AD 830 when human activity decreased. Keywords Pollen Á Microcharcoal Á NPPs Á Geochemistry Á NE Poland Á Human impact Á Shifting agriculture Á Iron Age Á West Balts Communicated by M. Latałowa.
Pollen analysis of sediments from the upper part of bottom deposits from Lake Salęt allowed reconstruction of main stages of the Late Holocene vegetation transformation in the Mrągowo Lake District (from ca. 3600 cal. years BC) and to correlate some of these changes with immigration and economic activity of local human groups. Significant spreading of secondary semi-natural birch forest, development of horn beam forest and increasing importance of anthropogenic open communities were the most characteristic features of vegetation evolution. A definite break down of elm took place between 2900 and 2500 cal. years BC, slightly after increased contribution of birch in wood lands. Disappearance of hazel around 1200 cal. years BC, accompanied by expansion of horn beam has been observed and should be linked with activity of the Ząbie-Szestno type culture and the Lusatian culture tribes during the Bronze Age, but not with a climate change. Considerable intensification of settlement processes recorded in the younger part of the Subatlantic chronozone was one of the important reasons that were responsible for quick changes in forest structure. Strong and continued deforestation started as early as the end of the 10th century AD and was substantially intensified in the first half of the 13th century.
Ab stractThe re sults of pol len, non-pol len palynomorph and microcharcoal par ti cle anal y ses of de pos its from a small pond in north east ern Po land are pre sented. The study fo cused on hu man-in duced veg e ta tion changes that oc curred in a close vi cin ity of the set tle ment com plex at Poganowo dur ing the Mid dle Ages (ca 10 th -16 th cen tu ries). We dis tin guished three phases of hu man im pact. First and third phases cor re spond to in ten si fied set tle ment ac tiv ity. The sec ond phase was a pe riod when hu man ac tiv ity de creased and wood land re gen er a tion took place. The high in ci dence of the par asitic fun gus Kretzschmaria deusta in a lo cal for est stand dur ing the third phase was si mul ta neous with nu mer ous spores of coprophilous fungi (Sordaria-type and Cercophora-type). We con sider that Kretzschmaria deusta in hab ited the roots and bases of tree trunks dam aged by dig ging and graz ing an i mals.Key words: hu man im pact, pol len anal y sis, fun gal spores, Masuria, Mid dle Ages. Mansuscipt re ceived 1 December 2014, ac cepted 1 June 2015 IN TRO DUC TIONA use of in di ca tor char ac ter is tics of some plant taxa, as well as of other or gan isms, is a fun da men tal method in palaeo ec ol ogy, en abling re con struc tion of past en vi ronments (e.g. Birks, 2003;Lata³owa et al., 2013). Among the microfossils that are ob served in pol len slides, fungi, al gae and other non-pol len palynomorphs (NPP) have be come partic u larly im por tant, be cause of their po ten tial to im prove recon struc tion of past eco sys tems (van Geel, 2001;van der Lin den et al., 2012). Van Geel and Aptroot (2006) un derlined that fun gal re mains are of high po ten tial in this con text. In par tic u lar, these au thors em pha sized the im por tance of fun gal taxa with well-char ac ter ized bi o log i cal and eco log ical re quire ments, e.g. Sporormiella sp. and Sordaria sp., which are in di ca tors for dung, or Kretzschmaria deusta, a par a site on de cay ing wood, in di cat ing pres ence of their host trees. How ever, a palaeo eco logi cal po ten tial of fun gal remains has not yet been fully ex plored. We pres ent re sults of palynological anal y sis in the frame work of in ter dis ci plin ary re search pro ject con ducted in the set tle ment com plex at Poganowo Wyczó³kowski et al., 2013). This set tle ment com plex is lo cated en tirely in a for est, and nearby there are nu mer ous small peat bogs and ponds suitable for lo cal-scale veg e ta tion re con struc tions (com pare Sugita et al., 2007). Our main ob jec tive was to study transfor ma tion of veg e ta tion caused by hu man ac tiv ity. Moreover, by the ap pli ca tion of NPP and microcharcoal par ti cle anal y sis we tried to char ac ter ize farm ing mod els, as sum ing the pos si bil ity of at trib ut ing the pres ence of spores of coprophilous fungi (e.g. Sordaria-type, Sporormiella-type) to land-use prac tices, par tic u larly hus bandry. AR CHAE O LOG I CAL AND HIS TOR I CAL BACK GROUNDThe set tle ment com plex at Poganowo ...
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