Beschreibung: The paper presents the result of analysis of charred food on the interior part of the vessels from the graves of the East Manych and West Manych Catacomb archaeological cultures (2500–2350 cal bc ). The phytolith and pollen analyses identified pollen of wild steppe plants and phytoliths of domesticated gramineous plants determined as barley phytoliths. Direct 14 С dating of one of the samples demonstrates that barley spikelets and stems were used in funeral rites by local steppe communities. However, there are no data suggesting that steppe inhabitants of the Lower Don Region were engaged in agriculture in the mid-3000 bc . Supposedly, barley could have reached the steppes through seasonal migrations of mobile pastoralists to the south, use of North Caucasus grasslands in the economic system of seasonal moves and exchange with local people. Nevertheless, presence of carbonized barley seeds in the occupation layers at North Caucasus settlements of 4000–3000  bc requires confirmation by direct 14 С dating of such samples.

Beschreibung: We review the history of Quaternary pollen analysis from 1916 to the present-day, with particular emphasis on methodological and conceptual developments and on the early pioneers of the subject. The history is divided into three phases—the pioneer phase 1916–1950, the building phase 1951–1973, and the mature phase 1974–present-day. We also explore relevant studies prior to Lennart von Post’s seminal lecture in 1916 in Kristiania (Oslo) in an attempt to trace how the idea of Quaternary pollen analysis with quantitative pollen counting and stratigraphical pollen diagrams developed.

Beschreibung: In 2016 the 100th birthday of palynology was celebrated: Lennart von Post introduced the scientific discipline in 1916 at lectures in Oslo and Stockholm. However, von Post was not the first to study pollen, and research dates back to the works of Nehemiah Grew and Marcello Malpighi in the late 17th century. Afterwards studies focussed mainly on the role of pollen for plant reproduction, and on pollen morphology. The first scientist who observed fossil pollen was Heinrich Göppert in 1836. However, it was not until the 1890s and 1900s that the study of pollen became a regular component in the reconstruction of past vegetation. Lennart von Post subsequently developed theoretical and practical concepts and methods of pollen analysis, and raised palynology from its infancy into the mature scientific discipline that flourished greatly during the century that followed.

Beschreibung: Recent global warming is pronounced in high-latitude regions (e.g. northern Asia), and will cause the vegetation to change. Future vegetation trends (e.g. the “arctic greening”) will feed back into atmospheric circulation and the global climate system. Understanding the nature and causes of past vegetation changes is important for predicting the composition and distribution of future vegetation communities. Fossil pollen records from 468 sites in northern and eastern Asia were biomised at selected times between 40 cal ka bp and today. Biomes were also simulated using a climate-driven biome model and results from the two approaches compared in order to help understand the mechanisms behind the observed vegetation changes. The consistent biome results inferred by both approaches reveal that long-term and broad-scale vegetation patterns reflect global- to hemispheric-scale climate changes. Forest biomes increase around the beginning of the late deglaciation, become more widespread during the early and middle Holocene, and decrease in the late Holocene in fringe areas of the Asian Summer Monsoon. At the southern and southwestern margins of the taiga, forest increases in the early Holocene and shows notable species succession, which may have been caused by winter warming at ca. 7 cal ka bp . At the northeastern taiga margin (central Yakutia and northeastern Siberia), shrub expansion during the last deglaciation appears to prevent the permafrost from thawing and hinders the northward expansion of evergreen needle-leaved species until ca. 7 cal ka bp . The vegetation-climate disequilibrium during the early Holocene in the taiga-tundra transition zone suggests that projected climate warming will not cause a northward expansion of evergreen needle-leaved species.

Beschreibung: Modern pollen spectra can improve the interpretation of fossil pollen records used to reconstruct past vegetation, climate and human impacts. It is important, therefore, to carefully examine the relationships between modern pollen spectra, vegetation, climate and human activity. Here, we present the results of an analysis of the pollen spectra of 143 surface pollen samples from farmland, wasteland, desert, steppe/meadow, forest and river valley along a transect from Lanzhou to Urumqi, in northwestern China. The modern pollen assemblages are mainly composed of Amaranthaceae, Artemisia , Poaceae, Asteraceae, Ephedra and Nitraria . The results indicate that in general the surface pollen assemblages of different vegetation types reliably represent the modern vegetation in terms of the composition of the main taxa and the dominant types. Farmland is dominated by cereal-type (≥ 15%) and Amaranthaceae (≥ 20%), while the pollen assemblages of wasteland (i.e. the vegetation immediately surrounding farmland) are mainly composed of Amaranthaceae (≥ 25%), Artemisia (≥ 20%), Poaceae (≥ 10%), Asteraceae (≥ 5%) and Cyperaceae (≥ 5%). Amaranthaceae (≥ 45%) and Ephedra (≥ 10%) are the most important taxa in desert, and Cyperaceae (≥ 35%) and Thalictrum (≥ 2%) are the dominant pollen types in steppe/meadow. Forest and river valley samples are characterized by high frequencies of Picea (≥ 10%) and Cyperaceae (≥ 20%). Both constrained and partial canonical ordination techniques (RDA and partial RDA) of the main pollen types and environmental variables show that the modern pollen spectra are primarily controlled by mean annual precipitation (MAP). Cyperaceae, Thalictrum and Brassicaceae are positively correlated with MAP and negatively correlated with mean July temperature (T July ), while the representation of certain other types, such as Amaranthaceae, Ephedra and Nitraria , is negatively correlated with MAP and positively correlated with T July . The Human Influence Index (HII) is significantly correlated with cereal-type pollen, and it can also differentiate human-influenced and natural vegetation. Our results provide a basis for improving the interpretation of fossil pollen records from arid northwestern China and similar regions.

Beschreibung: In the late spring of the year ad 1295 a landslide devastated the village of Onoldswil in the Swiss Jura mountains. During recent construction work, a small area of the original land surface was unearthed. The 5 m of compacted clay deposited by the landslide had caused the complete exclusion of oxygen and underneath it the excavators came upon mosses, blades of grasses and other plants that were still green. Below the vegetation cover the humus horizon with subterranean plant parts appeared. Samples were taken for plant macro- and microfossil and geoarchaeological analyses. This offered the rare opportunity to study the vegetation and the topsoil of a small area of land preserved in situ as an autochthonous palaeobiocoenosis, the preserved original combination of the plant community which grew there. Grassland taxa dominated the pollen and macrofossil spectra. Compacted zones within the humus horizon, the plant taxa composition and the presence of spores of coprophilous fungi showed that this place had once been a nutrient-rich pasture. Grazing animals had favoured the spread of juniper. Manuring seems to have taken place. The slopes of the surrounding mountains had been largely cleared of woodland, which may have been the cause of the landslide. The disaster probably happened in late spring, because entire fruiting capitula of Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) were found. Landslides are catastrophic events, destroying the soils and everything that lives in and on them on their way downhill. In places, however, they can also blanket the original land surface and its vegetation and create an archive of ancient life.

Beschreibung: Modern soil phytoliths can potentially provide analogues for phytolith assemblages from archaeological and palaeoecological contexts. To assess the reliability of soil phytoliths for representing different plant communities, we analysed phytoliths in surface soils and parent plants at 65 sites representing five types of regional vegetation in Northeast China. The results demonstrated that surface soil phytolith assemblages could clearly differentiate samples from herbaceous and woody communities, and samples from Poaceae and non-Poaceae communities could be separated statistically. In addition, woody communities could be differentiated into a broadleaf-Poaceae community, a broadleaf-non-Poaceae community and a conifer and broadleaf-non-Poaceae community, except for some overlapping samples. Soil phytolith assemblages are thus able to differentiate regional vegetation types into different plant community types. In the present study, soil phytoliths represented about 30% of the phytoliths present in the aboveground vegetation. In addition, soil phytoliths from different communities reflected the aboveground vegetation with slightly different degrees of accuracy, and in addition different morphotypes exhibited different degrees of representational bias. Some morphotypes (e.g. rondel, elongate psilate, lanceolate) overrepresented the abundance of the associated plant taxa; morphotypes such as tracheid, conical epidermal, stomata and others under-represented the original plant richness; and other morphotypes, e.g. saddle, trapeziform sinuate, scutiform, were in good agreement with the numbers of plant taxa in the plot inventory. Thus, any quantitative palaeovegetation reconstruction using phytoliths should begin with the calibration of soil phytolith assemblages. We conclude that our findings provide improved phytolith analogues for different plant communities, with applications in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and they also provide additional insights into the mechanisms of phytolith production and deposition.

Beschreibung: The initial relationships between the first human colonizers and the native vegetation of Isla San Cristóbal, Galápagos, were studied by the analyses of wood charcoal, plant macro-remains, phytoliths and historical records. Archaeological and modern botanical samples were collected from four archaeological sites within the former farmland of the 19th century Hacienda El Progreso, a sugar plantation located in the moist highlands of the island. The archaeobotanical remains show the use of native timber, the introduction of crops and weeds, some aspects of local diet, and evidence of vegetation clearance. Ecological impact is shown by the changes to the native vegetation caused by human colonization of the island and the expansion of agricultural land for the plantation enterprise. This paper provides a synthesis of the archaeobotanical study at El Progreso which forms a baseline for future research in the Galápagos islands.