ИСТИНА

Smolensk region is rich for archaeological sites of the last two millennia. It was of the major point on the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks in middle ages. Modern landscape and vegetation of the Smolensk region was formed by human activities and climate conditions. The aim of our study is to reconstruct the history of vegetation in Smolensk region, to estimate human impact on the landscape and to find evidences of different waves of settlement in the region using pollen analysis, AMS radiocarbon dating and archaeological data. Now we present the reconstruction of the vegetation based on pollen analysis of sediments obtained from two sites. The first one is located among archaeological sites of different ages and cultures (including famous Gnezdovo). The second site is situated in 50 km to the West from the first (in about 10 km to the East from the Russian-Belarusian state border) and distanced from known archaeological sites. The comparison of pollen diagrams allows to suggest that the landscape of the investigated area is dramatically transformed by agriculture activity in last two millennia. A peatland near Gusinskoe village (the second site) was supposedly appeared due to an anthropogenic fire associated with slash-and-burn agriculture. Slash-and-burn markers are also presented in sediments from the first site. Exact dates of the fires and shifts in vegetation composition we are planning to obtain soon. The study was funded by RFBR, project number 19-34-90172.