Abstract
In some cases, the human impact on ancient landscapes has been so profound that local soils still remain significantly affected even after hundreds and thousands of years after ending impact. We studied the Late Bronze Age Muradymovo settlement located in the Urals, Russia, aiming to estimate the consequences of the ancient people’s activity on the environment. Despite the present humid climate, the modern soils inside the cultural layer of the study site contain more than 27% of gypsum at a depth of just 10 cm from the surface, and a microrelief of the study site is typical of a gypsum desert. The nearby background Chernozems are gypsum-free to a depth of 2 m. According to the archaeological data, the ancient people belonged to the ‘Srubno-Alakul’ archaeological culture (1750–1350 years B.C. cal (calibrated years before Christ)) and had a tradition of building their houses from gypsum rocks. At the present time, this area is still unsuitable for human settlement. The properties of modern soils inside the cultural layer of the study site are directly affected by the Late Bronze Age human activities. It has been identified on soil morphology, micromorphology, and chemical properties of soils developed inside the cultural layer of the settlement.
Highlights
By the content and distribution of Ptot, the modern soil adequately reflects its natural background level, which can be used as a reference for separating the natural and anthropogenic layers: the former are poor in phosphorus, while the latter are characterized by the Ptot content above 0.22%
The analyses have shown that there is a high concentration of sulphates in the water extract of soil solution, which favors the migration and recrystallization of gypsum throughout the ancient cultural layer
On the basis of the data obtained, it can be confidently concluded that the gypsum-bearing strata in the upper part of the excavation pit have an anthropogenic origin
Summary
The human impact on ancient landscapes has been so profound that local soils still remain significantly affected even after hundreds and thousands of years after ending impact [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Studying the causes and implications of such negative influences of past human activities on soils and environment is necessary to prevent similar accidents in the future. The present article describes a case study of the extremely severe and long-lasting impact of ancient people on soils and environment. The study site is the Late Bronze Age settlement of Muradymovo, located in Bashkortostan Republic (Urals region, Russia). The site and its area have a peculiar hillocky microrelief that doesn’t occur anywhere else in Bashkortostan Republic.
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