Paleosols under kurgans and kurgan constructions of the bronze age as indicators of paleoenvironmental conditions in steppe area of russia

Abstract

In the steppe area of Russia, four key sites—Krasnodar (kurgan 1 of the kurgan cemetery (KC) Beysuzhek IX, kurgan Shumny), Stavropol (kurgan Essentuksky 1), and the Orenburg region (kurgan 1 of the KC Boldyrevo IV)—have undergone geoarchaeological studies of the soils buried under the Bronze Age burial mounds/kurgans and the material from which the kurgans were built. The aim was determining and comparing properties of buried soils and the material of kurgan constructions, conducting paleoclimatic reconstructions, and knowing of the technology used for kurgan building. In our study, the kurgans have been treated as a single whole system, “kurgan constructions-buried soils.“ The study has identified the principal approaches for building kurgans and compared the properties of paleosols and materials used in kurgan constructions for all studied sites. Based on the micromorphological analysis and physicochemical properties of the materials of the kurgan constructions and the buried soils, we can assume that people constructed kurgans from local soils with a minor admixture of anthropogenic material. In the steppe region of Russia, the study found three stages of changing climate during the Bronze Age: two stages of increased aridity (in the Atlantic period of the Holocene (AT-3)—5700–5500 years ago for the whole steppe zone of the East European Plain and in the Subboreal period (SB-1)—4300–4200 years ago for the Kuban-Azov Lowland and the Trans-Kuban Plain) and one stage of increased humidity (in the Subboreal period (SB-3)—3500–3000 years ago for the Trans-Kuban Plain).