Late Vistulian Research Articles

Environmental Changes and Human Impact on Holocene Evolution of the Horodyska River Valley (Lublin Upland, East Poland)

Environmental Changes and Human Impact on Holocene Evolution of the Horodyska River Valley (Lublin Upland, East Poland) Interdisciplinary palaeoenvironmental studies, conducted near the multi-cultural archaeological sites in the Horodyska River valley (Lublin Upland, East Poland), enable to reconstruct natural and anthropogenic changes of fluvial landscape in the Holocene. The changes are evidenced by the results of archaeological, geological, sedimentological and palynological investigations, as well as radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating. The Horodyska fluvial system started functioning at the turn of the Late Vistulian and Preboreal. From the beginning of the Subatlantic the record of environmental changes in valley deposits bears the mark of human impact. Main phases of settlement on the river valley bottom (higher terrace) correspond to rather dry periods (Neolithic, Bronze Age, Halstadt period, period of Roman influence, early Middle Ages). Moistening of climate and its associated rise of groundwater level forced people to move settlement on the loess plateau and found a stronghold at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries.

Changes of Natural Environment in Kraków Downtown - Its Chronology and Directions. Case Geoarchaeological Studies of Krupnicza Street Site

Changes of Natural Environment in Kraków Downtown - Its Chronology and Directions. Case Geoarchaeological Studies of Krupnicza Street Site Sediments exposed in a construction excavation form a sequence: alluvial deposits > black soil > made ground. Peat-like deposits, organic muds and occasionally sand occur between the soil and the made ground. High aeolization of alluvial sediments allows relating their age to the Late Vistulian. The sediments were eroded and in the washout at first organic muds were deposited and subsequently sands. The lowest layer, radiocarbon-dated at 4510±60 uncal. years BP (Gd-12724), can be probably linked to climate moistening at the transition between the Holocene Atlantic and the Subboreal period. Pollen grains found in muds, black soil and peat-like deposits reflect the changes of local plant cover from dominated by pine woodlands (at the transition between the Atlantic and the Subboreal period) to strongly deforested with single trees, meadows, small crop fields and gardens in the Medieval period. Palynological results describing the character of vegetation might have been influenced also by direct human activity on site, e.g. by storage of wood and branches (then used as construction material or fuel), crops, fodder or waste. Microartefacts found in soil suggest metal processing in the vicinity during the Bronze Age. In the made ground, which has been accumulating since the 14th century, quartz, clay minerals and micas were identified together with fragments of bricks, concrete, ceramics, bones, slag, charcoal, organic matter, limestone fragments and metals. Horizons enriched in slag fragments are also high in metals: Fe, Mn and Pb, which reveal a twofold increase in metal processing activity.

The oxbow sedimentary subenvironment: its value in palaeogeographical studies as illustrated by selected fluvial systems in the Upper Odra catchment, southern Poland

Research was conducted in valleys of sinuous rivers that drain medium-high mountain, foreland basin and upland areas, where loose Quaternary deposits predominate. The cyclic pattern determined for deposits of the oxbow sedimentary subenvironment in the Upper Odra Basin can be expressed as a few alternative sequences. The best-developed cycle occurring on a relatively high level of probability, is represented by the unilateral transition from channel to overbank deposits and upwards-bilateral oscillations between overbank and biochemical, as well as biochemical and slope deposits. In the first stage, oxbow filling processes are usually determined by autocyclic factors (resulting from spatial relations between abandoned channels and the active channel). As a consequence, overbank and/or biochemical sediments usually overlie channel deposits. Later, allocyclic processes could easily dominate autocyclic processes. In these cases, overbank, slope and late-Holocene alluvial fan deposits were delivered to oxbow basins as a result of the influence of outside factors such as climate or human impact. In the Upper Odra catchment, facies succession in the sequences of deposits infilling abandoned channels was mainly determined by climatic factors (in the Late Vistulian, early and mid-Holocene) and anthropogenic factors (in the late Holocene, especially in the last dozen centuries or more). The course of sedimentary processes conditioned by climate and human activity was modified by orographic factors associated with spatial relations among abandoned channels and both the active channel as well as valley slopes. However, the geological structure had a smaller influence on the course of sedimentary processes in the oxbows. The diversity of bedrock lithology in the individual drainage areas determined the thickness and lithological features of the given series of deposits but not the facies succession.

Late Vistulian and Holocene mollusc assemblages from calcareous tufa at the Ostrysz Hill (Podhale Basin, S Poland)

1. Progress in the holocene chrono-climatostratigraphy of Polish territory Leszek Starkel, Danuta Michczyńska, Marek Krąpiec, Włodzimierz Margielewski, Dorota Nalepka, Anna Pazdur Geochronometria CrossRef

Recurrent Holocene landslides: a case study of the Krynica landslide in the Polish Carpathians

Situated in the southern part of the Polish Outer Carpathians, the development of the Krynica lanslide is presented in detail. Head scarps, slide shoulders and colluvial ridges connected with particular episodes of sliding occur on the western slope of the Parkowa Góra Mountain. Peaty silts and calcareous tufa suitable for the radiocarbon dating fill depressions within colluvial masses. Calcareous deposits contain rich assemblages of molluscs characterizing changes of the climate and the environment during the Late Vistulian and the Holocene. Four stages in the evolution of the landslide correspond with phases of increased mass movements distinguished elsewhere in the Carpathians according to radiocarbon dating as well as palynological and malacological analyses. The phases of enhanced mass movement correlate in turn with climatic changes.

Stratigraphy of eolian deposits in Wolin Island and the surrounding area, North‐West Poland

Dunes and eolian cover sands play an important role in the morphology of Wolin Island and the surrounding area. From radiocarbon dates, palynological data, archaeological evidence and the study of Swedish maps from 1694, it can be inferred that the above forms accumulated in the Late Vistulian (Older Dryas and Younger Dryas) and Holocene periods, mostly in the Subboreal and Sub‐Atlantic periods. The development of eolian processes was due to climatic conditions during the Late Vistulian as well as the Holocene human involvement in the environment of dune‐covered areas and the absence of a vegetation cover on sand spits emerging successively from the sea.