When the point becomes the area: multivariate and spatial analysis of pollen data

Almost every agricultural activity affects vegetation; these disturbances are recorded in the palynological record of natural archives, such as lakes and mires. A great number of data sets have been elaborated in recent decades, providing detailed and excellent information about vegetation and land use history since Neolithic times. Each of these datasets, however, is restricted to a particular point in the landscape. The project introduced here collects these data in a database and processes them for further spatial analysis. The aim of the project is to develop maps for the intensity of human impact in different landscapes: A diachronous index for the intensity of human impact is derived by canonical correspondence analysis, mapped and displayed spatially. Here the first results of the project for the Rhenish Loessboerde (Western Germany) and the Lake Constance region (Southern Germany) shall be introduced

Nye pollenanalyser frå Skerdenhagen myr i Stange, Hedmark Fylkeskommune Stange k., gnr. 51 bnr.1

Oppdragsgiver: KHM, UiOKulturhistorisk museum (UiO) utarbeider for tiden prosjektplan og budsjett for videre arkeologiske undersøkelser ca. 1 km øst for Skjerdenhagan myr. Hovedvekten av lokalitetene som skal graves ut ligger ved gårdene Guåker og Næsten hvor de mest omfattende undersøkelsene vil finne sted. Ut fra registreringsresultatene (C14-dateringer og kulturminnetyper, særlig kokegroper og bryggesteinslag) vil prosjektets hovedfokus ligge i jernalderen og middelalderen, men det er også av interesse å belyse vegetasjonsutviklingen og landbruket i neolitikum-bronsealder. I 2018 tog Arkeologisk Museum i Stavanger i sammenarbeid med Hedmarks Fylkeskommune to overlappende ca. 6m lange borkjerner fra Skjerdenhagen myr for å gjennomføre pollenanalyser i forbindelse med et massedeponi for byggingen av ny jernbane. Hedmark fylkeskommune ønsket å sikre seg den informasjonen denne myr kan gi om forhistorisk bruk av området. Borkjernene er lagret på Arkeologisk museum i Stavanger og er tilgjengelig for ytterlige analyser. Som fremgår av rapporten (Lechterbeck 2019) ble det analysert 12 prøver i 2019 for å lage et oversiktsdiagram samt tre radiokarbondateringer. Kulturhistorisk museum Oslo ønsker nå ytterlige analyser med en høyere oppløsning, særlig av yngre bronsealder, jernalder og middelalder, evt. Neolitikum for å belyse vegetasjonsutviklingen og landbruk i området. Resultatene av den nye undersøkelsen ble presentert her sammen med de forrige (Lechterbeck 2019)

Arkeologisk undersøkelse av bosetningsspor fra eldre bronsealder, romertid og folkevandringstid på Mosterøy

Oppdragsgiver: Statens vegvesen, region vestArkeologisk museum, Universitetet i Stavanger gjennomførte en arkeologisk undersøkelse etter kulturminnelovens § 8 og 10 i tidsrommet 25.07.2016 – 02.11. 2016 av 4 automatisk fredete lokaliteter på Mosterøy, Rennesøy kommune. Undersøkelsesområdet lå på sørsiden av Mosterøyveien (Fv 561) mellom gårdene Vold og Kåda. Undersøkelsen omfattet følgende arkeologiske kulturminner i kulturminnedatabasen «Askeladden»: ID 170565, ID 170445, ID 170569 og ID 170572. En rekke kulturminner fra forskjellige perioder ble oppdaget og dokumentert. De viktigste av disse var: • Et toskipet hus fra eldre bronsealder på lokalitet ID170565 3 • Deler av minst et treskipet langhus fra romertid med tilhørende strukturer på lokalitet ID 170445 • Velbevarte rester av et treskipet langhus fra yngre romertid / folkevandringstid med bevarte gulvlag og komplekse strukturer i tilknytning til huset på lokalitet ID 170569 • Tekniske anlegg eller groper med spor av handverk og metallbearbeidelse fra middelalder og eldre jernalder på lokalitet ID 17056

Arkeologiske undersøkelser av bosetningsspor og dyrkingslag fra eldre og yngre jernalder på Leigvam gnr. 13, Sandnes kommune, Rogaland

Oppdragsgiver: Vardafjell Vindkraft ASArkeologisk museum gjennomførte i juli 2018 arkeologiske undersøkelser på Id 214535, 214538 og 216133 på gården Leigvam (Leikvam/Leigvang) i Sandnes kommune. Undersøkelsene ble gjennomført i forbindelse med anleggsvei til « Vardafjell Vindkraft AS». Utgravningen går derfor under betegnelsen «Vardafjell». Det ble åpnet til sammen omtrent 540 m2, fordelt på de tre lokalitetene, og det ble undersøkt 53 anleggspor og ett dyrkingsprofil. Lokalitetene ble datert til eldre jernalder, merovingertid og vikingtid/tidlig middelalder

Arkeologiska och naturvetenskapliga undersökningar av ett röse från eldre bronsålder (id 222338) : Gudmestad gnr. 28, bnr. 3 i Hå kommune, Rogaland fylke

Oppdragsgiver: RiksantikvarenHär presenteras resultatet av den arkeologiska utgrävningen av id 222338 som utfördes av Arkeologisk museum, Universitetet i Stavanger (UiS) under hösten 2017. Undersökningen genomfördes efter att markägaren beviljats tillstånd att störa röset vid planerad uppodling samt anläggande av jordbruksvägar på vad som för närvarande är betesmark. Utgrävningen utfördes från 2017-10-02 till 2017-10-13 av en arbetslag bestående av tre personer. Lokalen flatavbanades dels manuelt, dels med hjälp av grävmaskin. Efter en inledande rensing och dokumentation undersöktes det registrerade röset vid handgrävning genom borttagande av fyra stenlager. Bara två fynd, ett omodiferat kvartsblock och en flintkärna, upptäcktes under utgrävningen. Dessutom noterades ett humöst lager i tre fältkantsjordprofiler och i rösets fyllning. Röset har tolkats som en gravplats, men vid undersökningen hittades inget som tydligt stöder denna tolkning. Röset och det humöst lagret tidsbestämdes med hjälp av 14C-datering till äldre bronsålder

Intensification of agriculture in southwestern Germany between the Bronze Age and Medieval period, based on archaeobotanical data from Baden-Württemberg

A system of farming with an alternation of land use between being cultivated or left fallow as grassland (Feldgraswirtschaft) developed in southwestern Germany since the Bronze Age. It involved fallow periods, where the arable land is left without crops in order to let it recover its fertility for several years while becoming grassland. This led to regeneration of the topsoil humus, which could later be mobilized by cultivation. With later farming systems, the supply of nutrients needed for crops could also be provided by manuring, which allowed shorter fallow periods but required the production of manure. Such cultivation systems with short or even without fallow phases and with intensive manuring are known from the medieval period as one, two or three field systems of agriculture and their development was an important step towards the intensification of farming. The current study considers on-site plant macrofossil data from archaeological sites as well as the off-site pollen data from cores in Baden-Württemberg in order to recognize the main changes towards agricultural intensification through time from the Bronze Age up to medieval times. The various landscape types included in the study area also reveal their different agricultural histories of intensification. In lowlands with good soils, the intensification can be recognized earlier and more strongly than in uplands or other marginal areas. The main shift towards intensification took place in the Roman period, which is also confirmed by written sources of the time that mention manuring as well as a kind of two field system and alternation between grassland and arable land.publishedVersio

Historical Spruce Abundance in Central Europe: A Combined Dendrochronological and Palynological Approach

Spruce is the most cultivated tree species in modern forestry in Central Europe, since it has the ability to grow on many soil types with profitable biomass accumulation. However, even-aged and uniform spruce forests are affected by recurring droughts and associated biotic stressors leading to large-scale diebacks across Central Europe causing controversies among foresters and nature conservationists. We investigate the role of spruce in historical woodlands by using 15666 spruce timbers from historical buildings and on the basis of pollen-based land cover estimates using the REVEALS model from 157 pollen sites in southern Central Europe. Start and end dates of the spruce timber samples and their dendrological characteristics (age, growth rates and stem diameters) were used to obtain information on past forest structures. Tree rings and REVEALS estimates are combined at a spatial scale of 1° × 1° resolution, grouped in four sub-regions, and a temporal resolution of 100-year time windows starting from 1150 to 1850 CE. We found that spruce dominates the species assemblage of construction timber with almost 41% and that the harvest age varies little through time, whereas a declining trend in growth rates and stem diameters are observed toward times before modern forestry. Temporal and regional differences in spruce abundance and building activity were found highlighting periods of (i) land abandonment and forest expansion in the 14th century, (ii) increased wood consumption during the 16th century due to population increase and beginning industrial developments, (iii) a forest recovery during and after the Thirty years' war, and (iv) afforestation efforts from the 1650s onwards. Furthermore, this study shows that spruce was constantly present in the study area in most studied sub-regions for the last 800 years. We demonstrate the need of combining tree-ring and pollen data to identify spatiotemporal patterns in spruce abundance and utilization.publishedVersio

Late Neolithic Agriculture in Temperate Europe — A Long-Term Experimental Approach

Long-term slash-and-burn experiments, when compared with intensive tillage without manuring, resulted in a huge data set relating to potential crop yields, depending on soil quality, crop type, and agricultural measures. Cultivation without manuring or fallow phases did not produce satisfying yields, and mono-season cropping on freshly cleared and burned plots resulted in rather high yields, comparable to those produced during modern industrial agriculture - at least ten-fold the ones estimated for the medieval period. Continuous cultivation on the same plot, using imported wood from adjacent areas as fuel, causes decreasing yields over several years. The high yield of the first harvest of a slash-and-burn agriculture is caused by nutrient input through the ash produced and mobilization from the organic matter of the topsoil, due to high soil temperatures during the burning process and higher topsoil temperatures due to the soil’s black surface. The harvested crops are pure, without contamination of any weeds. Considering the amount of work required to fight weeds without burning, the slash-and-burn technique yields much better results than any other tested agricultural approach. Therefore, in dense woodland, without optimal soils and climate, slash-and-burn agriculture seems to be the best, if not the only, feasible method to start agriculture, for example, during the Late Neolithic, when agriculture expanded from the loess belt into landscapes less suitable for agriculture. Extensive and cultivation with manuring is more practical in an already-open landscape and with a denser population, but its efficiency in terms of the ratio of the manpower input to food output, is worse. Slash-and-burn agriculture is not only a phenomenon of temperate European agriculture during the Neolithic, but played a major role in land-use in forested regions worldwide, creating anthromes on a huge spatial scale.© 2017 the authorspublishedVersio

Böhringer See, western Lake Constance (Germany): an 8500 year record of vegetation change

During the last 35 years, a number of high-resolution pollen diagrams were made for the western Lake Constance area. Up to now, 12 such records exist, most of them covering the time from the early Neolithic to the present, and all of them independently dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates. Here, we present a new pollen record from Böhringer See, a small dead ice lake, analysed in the course of a project on land-use change in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Pollen analysis was carried out in closed sampling in 1 cm or 0.5 cm sections, amounting to 465 samples. For all samples at least 1000 terrestrial pollen were counted and 334 taxa were identified. Twenty-three local pollen assemblage zones were distinguished covering the time from ad 6400–2000. The pollen record fits well into the regional framework. It depicts the regional vegetation development and human impact in detail but shows also minor local variations to the regional development featuring some original, local traits. The pollen record is rather similar to that from Litzelsee and Steisslinger See, both of which are located in close vicinity to the Böhringer See. The older pollen zones correlate very well chronologically with all pollen records in the area, the younger ones (from the Neolithic onwards) show stronger differentiation with regard to the duration and timing of pollen zones and the intensity of human impact. The raw data for this study will be published in the European Pollen Database.publishedVersio