PALEO-ENVIRONMENT RECONSTRUCTION ACCORDING TO DATA ON THE ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES IN THE FOREST-STEPPE AND STEPPE ZONE OF THE VOLGA REGION DURING HOLOCENE

Abstract

A comparative analysis of the materials obtained on the reconstruction of natural conditions over the past 7000 years indicates that in regions remote from each other for long distances (Volga-Don interfluve and Volga Upland), there was an almost synchronous change in paleoclimatic data, i.e., an increase in precipitation in one region corresponded to the same direction of paleoclimate change in another. At the same time, it should be noted that the reconstruction of the paleo-environment in these regions was carried out using different meth­odological approaches. In the forest-steppe zone of the Middle Volga region, such “responses” to the alterna­tion of micropluvials and microarids, as in the dry-steppe zone, are not diagnosed. Although there is a slight decrease in moisture after the Atlantic period, precipitation decreased by 4.5% in the early Iron Age and then by 6.5 % in the early Middle Ages. It should be noted that the methodological approaches to the reconstruction of natural conditions in the forest-steppe zone of the Middle Volga region were almost identical, as in the study of paleo-soils of the Avilovo 1 and Avilovo 2 sections in the Volga Upland. Chemical weathering index (CIA); - geochemical indicators of the weathering coefficient; - ratio of readily soluble salts; and also - dynamics of soil carbonates in buried soils of archaeological sites were used.