Composition of Atlantic forest in northern Carpathian foothills, from a charcoal record from a Neolithic domestic site at Żerków (Poland): The relevance of oak and hazel

Abstract

A study of firewood remains from the foothills of the Western Carpathians in Poland yielded information about the history of forest communities growing in the vicinity of human settlements in the Atlantic period. The anthracological material was collected at Żerków, a Neolithic site of the Linear Band Pottery culture, situated on the highest parts of a hill covered by fertile soil. The anthracological assemblage was dominated by Quercus and Corylus avellana, followed by Acer and Maloideae, suggesting that those taxa probably were significant constituents of the local forest during the Atlantic period. Based on the ecological requirements of the identified taxa, such communities occupied areas of more open canopy, but it is unclear whether the material reflects the composition of the primeval forest or rather the presence of open canopy created by human impacts on local ecosystems during the period of settlement.

Late Glacial and Holocene paleoecology and paleoenvironmental changes in the northern Carpathians foreland: The Żarska Cave (southern Poland) case study

“…Charcoal fragments of Ulmus sp., F. excelsior , and Acer sp. were usually found in the assemblages from Neolithic archeological sites from southern Poland (Burchard and Lityńska-Zając, 2002; Lityńska-Zając, 1997; Lityńska-Zając et al, 2017; Moskal-del Hoyo, 2016; Moskal-del Hoyo et al, 2017b, 2018; Wasylikowa et al, 1992). However, these taxa did not reach such high proportions in archeological charcoal assemblages and therefore, a unique charcoal Acer-Fraxinus-Ulmus-Corylus -dominated assemblage might be interpreted as a past forest community similar to a present-day Phyllitido-Aceretum association.…”