European Forest Zone Research Articles

NEW FINDS OF AXE-SHAPED PENDANTS ON THE TERRITORY OF BELARUS

The article is devoted to axe-shaped pendants from the territory of Belarus, which have been found in recent years. The issues of interpretation of these ornaments, their dating and cartography are considered. The pendants from the territory of the Pripyat Polesie are evidence of the coexistence of the Gothic population and the population of the Eastern European forest zone for most of the Hunnic time, and the "hatchet" from the territory of the Ponmont region indicates the gradual movement of part of the Gothic population towards modern Lithuania. These findings can be used to further study the problems of contacts between the Eastern European forest zone and the Gothic population during this period.

Landscape-level determinants of butterfly species richness in northern Europe: A country-wide survey reveals the paramount importance of forest land

Human-induced changes in habitat amount and quality constitute the key driver behind negative trends in global biodiversity. Conservation actions must be based on solid knowledge of the factors affecting species richness in the remaining habitat fragments. Besides local characteristics, it is critical to consider a broader spatial context when evaluating habitat quality. Here we present an analysis of landscape-level determinants of butterfly species richness based on a country-wide survey in Estonia, representing the northern European forest zone. This study compares favourably to previous research in its scope (over 1200 systematically selected sites), and provides a relatively ‘natural’ reference point for the analyses based on areas with higher human population density. The number of butterfly species locally recorded was sought to be explained by variables describing the surroundings of the study sites at four spatial scales. The proportion of forest land was by far the strongest factor (positively) affecting the number of butterfly species recorded, followed by soil alkalinity. Notably, the effects of forest land area at the smallest (in a radius of 250 m) and largest (2000 m) spatial scales were partly independent of each other. The former likely reflects immediate habitat quality while the latter should be related to the colonisation-extinction balance in the metapopulation context. The correlates of anthropogenic pressure (e.g., urbanization, roads, agriculture) had little effect. The results highlight the key role of designing responsible forestry practices in the regional context of nature conservation.

From a Concentration of Finds to Stone Age Architecture

High-quality documentation that was made during fieldwork at archaeological sites can provide new information for old excavations, even decades later. The revision of the archival data of the Stone Age settlement site Lommi III, located in the border zone of Russia and Estonia and excavated by Richard Indreko in 1940, allowed us to identify the remains of a Comb Ware culture (4th millennium cal BC) pit-house based on the concentration of artefacts marked in the field drawings. The rectangular shape and size of the concentration (c. 7.1x4.4m, depth 0.7–0.75m) corresponds to the architectural form common in the European forest zone and has numerous analogies at the settlement sites of that time in Finland, Karelia (Russia) and Estonia. The composition and diversity of the finds and their distribution indicate the (semi-)sedentary way of life of inhabitants of the pit-house. The radiocarbon age obtained from the organic crust on pottery fragments collected in the pit-house corresponds to the first half of 4th millennium cal BC.

Mesolithic anthropomorphic sculptures from the Northern Europe

This article presents and discusses a small but distinctive group of anthropomorphic antler sculptures from Northern Europe. Five sculptures from two locations, dated to the late 7th – early 6th millennia cal BC, are included in this study. By contextualising this group with broader traditions of Mesolithic art in the Northern and Eastern European forest zone, the distinctive elements – a deliberate lack of bodily and facial details or a peculiar way of depicting faces – are demonstrated. A significant resemblance with these sculptures and wrapped corpses suggests that the sculptures depict either the dead members of these communities or persons capable of switching between different conditions. If this interpretation is correct, it suggests that the agency of the dead members at that time was perceived very differently from what we see in anthropological analogies or in the anthropomorphic figurines from the later archaeological record.

Stone Age fishing strategies in a dynamic river landscape: Evidence from Veksa 3, Northwest Russia

The role of fishing in Stone Age hunter-gatherer societies of the European forest zone has been gaining importance as a research question over the last years. In order to better understand temporal developments in the role of fishing, changing strategies and their connection to environmental conditions, the study of multi-period stratified site holds good potential for working out a sound empirical basis. Multidisciplinary investigations at the site of Veksa 3 in northwestern Russia have substantially increased our understanding on the development of subsistence strategies of Stone and Early Metal Age populations in this region and on the changing role fishing played in this. For the Early Neolithic period (ca. mid-6th to early 5th mill. cal BC) evidence was gained from seasonal settlement remains within floodplain sediments at the bank of the river Vologda. Fish remains within the settlement structures represent kitchen remains (burnt bones) and processing debris (fish scales) with the dominant species being pike and cyprinids. The only evidence for fishing techniques are bone fish hooks which typologically are linked to Late Mesolithic practices in Northwest Russia. Isotopic analyses of ceramic food crusts attest to an increasing importance of pottery vessels in fish processing from the Early to the Middle Neolithic. For the Late Neolithic and the Early Metal Age period, almost one thousand years of intense regular use of the shallow water area east of the modern Veksa mouth for fishing with stationary constructions is attested to by rich waterlogged in situ remains. The wooden constructions encompass thousands of archaeological timbers, many of them upstanding posts with pointed ends, and several lath screens representing fich fences and fish traps, six of which have been excavated. Radiocarbon datings place the constructions within a time frame between the second half of the 4th and the third quarter of the 3rd millennium cal BC. They are associated with the lacustrine, shallow water phase identified in the palaeoenvironmental studies before the regime at this place changed to a fluvial character.

The Early and Middle Neolithic in NW Russia: radiocarbon chronologies from the Sukhona and Onega regions

The onset of the Neolithic period in the Russian North is defined by the emergence of pottery vessels in the archaeological record. The ceramics produced by mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher groups in the north-eastern European forest zone are among the earliest in Europe, starting around 6000 cal BC. After the initial mosaic of local styles in the Early Neolithic, including sparsely decorated wares and early Comb Ware, the Middle Neolithic period, starting in the 5th millennium cal BC, saw the development and spread of larger, more homogenous typological entities between the Urals and the Baltic, the Comb-Pit and Pit-Comb wares. Absolute chronologies, however, are still subject to debate, due to a general lack of reliable contextual information. Direct 14C dating of carbonised surface residues (‘food crusts’) on pots can help to address this problem, as it dates the use of the pottery; but if aquatic foods were processed in the vessels, the respective radiocarbon ages can appear to be too old due to the freshwater reservoir effect. In this pa­per, we discuss the radiocarbon chronologies of four important stratified archaeological complexes in the region between Lake Onega and the Sukhona basin, Berezovaya Slobodka, Veksa, Karavaikha, and Tudo­zero. A growing series of dates, including AMS dates, sheds new light on the onset and further periodisation of the Early and Middle Neolithic in this important area between Eastern Fennoscandia, Central Rus­sia and the Far North-East of Europe, although problems concerning the absolute chronology of the initial Neolithic remain.

The Early and Middle Neolithic in NW Russia: radiocarbon chronologies from the Sukhona and Onega regions

The onset of the Neolithic period in the Russian North is defined by the emergence of pottery vessels in the archaeological record. The ceramics produced by mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher groups in the north-eastern European forest zone are among the earliest in Europe, starting around 6000 cal BC. After the initial mosaic of local styles in the Early Neolithic, including sparsely decorated wares and early Comb Ware, the Middle Neolithic period, starting in the 5th millennium cal BC, saw the development and spread of larger, more homogenous typological entities between the Urals and the Baltic, the Comb-Pit and Pit-Comb wares. Absolute chronologies, however, are still subject to debate, due to a general lack of reliable contextual information. Direct 14C dating of carbonised surface residues (‘food crusts’) on pots can help to address this problem, as it dates the use of the pottery; but if aquatic foods were processed in the vessels, the respective radiocarbon ages can appear to be too old due to the freshwater reservoir effect. In this pa­per, we discuss the radiocarbon chronologies of four important stratified archaeological complexes in the region between Lake Onega and the Sukhona basin, Berezovaya Slobodka, Veksa, Karavaikha, and Tudo­zero. A growing series of dates, including AMS dates, sheds new light on the onset and further periodisation of the Early and Middle Neolithic in this important area between Eastern Fennoscandia, Central Rus­sia and the Far North-East of Europe, although problems concerning the absolute chronology of the initial Neolithic remain.

Stone Age Pottery Chronology in the Northeast European Forest Zone: New AMS and EA-IRMS Results on Foodcrusts

AbstractPottery produced by mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher groups in the northeast European forest zone is among the earliest in Europe. Absolute chronologies, however, are still subject to debate due to a general lack of reliable contextual information. Direct radiocarbon dating of carbonized surface residues (“foodcrusts”) on pots can help to address this problem, as it dates the use of the pottery. If a pot was used to cook fish or other aquatic species, however, carbon in the crust may have been depleted in 14C compared to carbon in terrestrial foods and thus appear older than it really is (i.e. showing a “freshwater reservoir effect,” or FRE). A connected problem, therefore, is the importance of aquatic resources in the subsistence economy, and whether pots were used to process aquatic food. To build better chronologies from foodcrust dates, we need to determine which 14C results are more or less likely to be subject to FRE, i.e. to distinguish crusts derived mainly from aquatic ingredients from those composed mainly of terrestrial foods. Integrating laboratory analyses with relative chronologies based on typology and stratigraphy can help to assess the extent of FRE in foodcrust dates. This article reports new 14C and stable isotope measurements on foodcrusts from six Stone Age sites in central and northern European Russia, and one in southeastern Estonia. Most of these 14C results are not obviously influenced by FRE, but the isotopic data suggest an increasing use of aquatic products over the course of the 6th and 5th millennia cal BC.

A MESOLITHIC HUMAN FIGURINE FROM RIVER PÄRNU, SOUTH-WEST ESTONIA: A CENTURY-OLD PUZZLE OF IDOLS, GODDESSES AND ANCESTRAL SYMBOLS

Introduction In the early years of the twentieth century, an antler human figurine (PaMu 1 A: 501) was found in River Parnu, south-east Estonia (Fig. 1). It is one of the rare archaeological finds from Estonia that already from the very first publications (Ebert 1913; Gluck 1914) reached several wider studies about European archaeology (Tallgren 1922; Childe 1925; Gimbutas 1956). Due to some reasons, interest in the object was lost during the second part of the century. It was mentioned only passingly in a study about the Stone Age religion in Estonia (Jaanits 1961) and it has not been brought up at all in Eesti esiajalugu (Estonian Prehistory, Jaanits et al. 1982), which was a major study of Estonian archaeology for decades. Most likely, one of the reasons for such a random use was the absence of dating and therefore a speculative relationship any specific archaeological period and culture. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The figurine The 10 cm tall human sculpture is made of an elk antler and it was created only very simple means. Two different ways of processing can be distinguished: cutting to create sharper edges and smoothing to express softer contours. With three wide grooves, the knees, waist and neck have been marked, and a sharp cut the flat breast and chin are shown. The mouth has been cut in so that the round chin emerges. The face together the hooknose has been designed by polishing. Eyes have not been depicted and this makes the statuette different from all other Stone Age figurines. Although slightly younger, the human figurines from the East European forest zone of the Late Mesolithic-Early Neolithic always have eyes and/or strong and protruding eyebrows (Butrimas 2000, 12). Eyes are marked usually drilled holes, but it seems that the eyebrows alone were also good enough for that purpose (see Fig. 4: 6, 7, 9). The face of the Parnu figurine has only a nose and a mouth, leaving the upper part of the face plane. In addition to the eyes, the sculpture is also missing details of the body. While the rest of the human figurines from the northern part of Eastern Europe have their hands marked lines or carved, then in the case of the Parnu example it had not even been tried. Also legs are missing, and therefore Marija Gimbutas has characterized the figurine as with a single leg (Gimbutas 1956, 189). According to Gimbutas, the absence of legs and hands is common in the art of the Stone Age East European forest zone (ibid.). Still, the claim does not hold true and limbs, either more or less elaborated, have been marked in the majority of human figurines dated to the Stone Age. The figure has been made from the tip of an antler branch. One can only agree the suggestion by Eduard Gluck that the antler branch was longer at the time of carving and it was used as a handle until it was cut (and broken) shorter from the pate after it had been finished (Gluck 1914, 265). Because of that the surface of the pate remained uneven and a groove was formed. Find context It is not known when exactly the figurine was found. It was first mentioned by Max Ebert (1913, 520) as an example from the private collection of Friedrich Rambach, but the proper publication and description was presented by Eduard Gluck a year later (1914, 265 f.). According to them, it can be assumed that the figurine was found either in 1911 or 1912. The antler object was found from the bottom of River Parnu in the town of Parnu, upstream of the one-time brick factory Koksi (Gluck 1914, 266), in the so-called Pauka crook, which is one of the richest find places of Estonian Stone Age bone and antler objects. The finds were collected mainly at the beginning of the 20th century, when sand and gravel was quarried from the bottom of the river. During the shovel-based quarrying, a rich collection of ancient artefacts was found from the Pauka crook. This site, which initiated the creation of many privately held collections, contained both hunting and fishing gear, but also axes, processed and unprocessed bone and antler, etc. …

Effect of the coniferous forest – grassland edge on ground vegetation in the mixed European forest zone, Lithuania

Abstract. The objective of this study was to estimate the edge effect on the species richness in agricultur-ally maintained forest-grassland boundaries of coniferous forest and to determine how species respond to a forest edge. We hypothesised that species number, cover of herbs and mosses is higher in the edge, and spe-cies penetrates from nearby grasslands into forest interior. The study was conducted in the Southwestern Lithuania. The edge effect on overall herbaceous species composition of coniferous forests was evaluated by Canonical Correspondence Analysis. The species richness of herbs and mosses in the coniferous forest was highest in the forest edge and declined towards interior. The highest decrease in the number of species occurred within 0 to 5 m to the edge. The highest cover of herbs and mosses was in the forest edge and decreased towards the forest interior. CCA biplot showed a good correlation of overall species composition and the distance to the forest edge. Distribution of species along edge to interior gradient depended on the species response to different ecological factors. Ellenberg value of light was higher in the edge. Ellenberg value of nitrogen was higher in the forest interior.Additional key words: canonical correspondence analysis, Ellenberg indicator values, forest edge effect, forest fragmentation, species richnessAddress: Institute of Environment and Ecology, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu 11, Lt-53361 Akademia, Kaunas r., Lithuania; Fax +370 7 752224; e-mail vitas.marozas@asu.lt

Neolithic Dispersal in Far Northeast Europe: Ways and Chronology

By analyzing archaeological evidence and radiocarbon dates, we studied the Neolithization of Far Northeast Europe (Russian Perm' region, Komi Republic, and Nenets autonomous district). Our study shows that this process in the eastern European forest zone was rather ambiguous. Taking into account the periodicity of settling and short duration of residence here, the term “Neolithization” in its traditional sense cannot be applied to some territories in this region. For instance, the emergence of ceramics—the most important feature of Neolithization here—did not affect considerably the way of life of the ancient population, which continued the traditions of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers well into the Early Neolithic. Such attributes as heat treatment of clay paste and siliceous rocks for changing physical features of natural materials, bifacial knapping, and construction of subterranean dwellings represent the archaeological evidence of Neolithization in the region.

Recent records of steppe species in Belarus, first indications of a steppe species invasion?

Belarus is situated at a crossroad of natural borders of species distributions: the NE part is situated in a taiga zone, whereas the other part of terrain is in the European forest zone. The distance of Belarus to the steppe zone is about 330 kilometers. This geographical position and the extensive knowledge of its fauna can be used to monitor changes in the distribution of different species. An intensive study of open habitat ground beetles was carried out from 1975–2008 in Belarus, using pitfall traps, quadrate-sampling methods, hand collecting, netting and light traps. In total, more than 130 000 specimens of ground beetles belonging to 169 species were collected from 62 fields and 11 meadows of different types. 217 specimens of Calosoma investigator (Illiger 1798), 2 specimens of Calosoma denticolle (Gebler 1833), and one specimen of Harpalus subcylindricus (Dejean, 1829), Harpalus honestus (Duftschmid 1812) and Zabrus tenebrioides (Goeze 1777) were present in this material. All specimens were macropterous and exclusively caught at fields and waste grounds on sandy soil. Nowadays Belarus is the northernmost location for these species in Eastern Europe. Steppe species most probably migrated to SE Belarus from NE Ukraine, using Dnieper and its river valleys. The shift in the geographic distribution of steppe species during the last thirty years in Belarus have been attributed to a higher frequency of warmer and wetter summers in the last few decades.