Abstract
New approaches developed within the complex palaeogeographic methodology of cave deposits studies for reconstruction of the past ecological conditions are presented in the paper. The relevance and reliability of results of such studies are shown on the cases from the previous research of cave systems in Ukraine. The methodology based of palynological and lithological (including grain-size analysis) study of terrigenous cave deposits is proposed, and the advantages of their complex application within the multidisciplinary palaeoenvironmental study are proved. The reliability of palaeovegetational reconstructions based on pollen studies of clastic cave deposits is confirmed by the compatibility of their results with those obtained from coeval subaerial deposits. The same patterns were shown by a comparison of pollen from hyaena coprolites in the cave and their enclosing sediments. It has been found that the content of redeposited pollen in the clastic sediments of caves depends on their particle size distribution, sharply increasing in sandy deposits. The grain-size composition of cave deposits also provides information on the genesis of deposits and, thus, indirectly, on paleoenvironmental conditions. Changes in clay, large silt and sand fractions are of main importance for the interpretation of the results. A direct correlation of paleoclimatic signals obtained by the results of pollen and lithological analyses with the indicators of magnetic susceptibility has been established. The use of these paleogeographic methods for studying cave deposits, namely pollen analyses, lithological (in particular, grain-size), palaeontological, petromagnetic, palaeogenetic, radiocarbon and paleomagnetic methods, will be able to control the reliability of the reconstruction by collate them. Multidisciplinary study of the cave deposits has a great potential for reconstructions of the ancient Man environments as deposits of many caves include archaeological horizons of different material cultures from the Early Palaeolithic to the Early Iron Age.
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