The continuous persistence of open oak forests in the Miechów Upland (Poland) in the second half of the Holocene

Abstract

The archaeological site 3 in Miechów provided samples for anthracological, carpological, zooarchaeological and malacofaunal analysis in order to investigate the dynamics of local vegetation and to understand people-environment interactions. The main research tasks included the characterization of local forests, the determination of the landscape openness near the site and a verification of the presence of xerothermic vegetation in the Atlantic period. The majority of samples came from the Neolithic period, which in Miechów began in the second half of the VIth millennium BC with the appearance of the Linear Pottery Culture and continued with several occupation phases until the development of the Funnel Beaker and Baden cultures. Younger periods were represented by archaeological features dated to the Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. Therefore, the recovered materials have been valuable sources of information about the local environment near human settlements developed during the second part of the Holocene. The anthracological study has revealed the dominance of open oak forests with Quercus, Pinus sylvestris and Betula during all occupational phases. The presence of feather grass Stipa sp., since the beginning of the settlement, has pointed toward the existence of patches of xerothermic steppe-like vegetation during the Holocene climatic optimum and in younger periods. Also, the molluscan assemblages have shown a dominance of taxa characteristic of open landscapes during the entire occupational sequence. The interdisciplinary results have indicated that due to specific local environmental conditions, the landscape in the vicinity of the settlement remained open in the second half of the Holocene.