Mesolithic-Neolithic settlements Minino 2 and Zamostje 5 in their geo-environmental setting (Upper Volga Lowland, Central Russia)

The local landscapes of Early Mesolithic-Neolithic settlements within the Upper Volga outwash plain are reconstructed based on the investigation of the multilayer archaeological sites Minino 2 and Zamostye 5, Moscow district, Russian forest zone according to former descriptions by the authors (Vandenberghe etal., 2010). Regional environments in the different stages of the Holocene beginning from the Preboreal, are considered using pollen data while local landscapes (including relief, soil, vegetation and water regime) are reconstructed on the base of sediments, fossil soils and macrofossils, as preserved in a series of burial pits of different age. Colonization of the area by hunters-fishermen followed the local proglacial lake filling and shallowing at the end of the Lateglacial - Postglacial period, about cal 12.0-12.2kaBP. Drying landscape inherited sharply undulating topography where elevated dry sites were populated up to a flooding episode between cal 2.5 and- 2.8kaBP, or about 850BC. Water receded between 1.7 and 1.9calkaBP, while large-scale peat accumulation and wetland expansion began about 650-700BP. During the Holocene depressions had been gradually filled with organic deposits reflecting change of hydrological regimes; the most significant wetting occurred about cal 5.3-5.4kaBP. Soil evolution has proceeded from initial calcareous alkaline soils to leached acid soils and further to peaty soils.