Human-Altered Soils at an Archeological Site of the Bronze Age: The Tyater-Araslanovo-II Settlement, Southern Cis-Ural Region, Russia
Ruslan Suleymanov,
Gulnara Obydennova,
Andrey Kungurtsev,
Niyaz Atnabaev,
Mikhail Komissarov,
Artyom Gusarov,
Ilgiza Adelmurzina,
Azamat Suleymanov,
Evgeny Abakumov
Affiliations
Ruslan Suleymanov
Laboratory of Soil Science, Ufa Institute of Biology UFRC, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Oktyabrya 69, 450054 Ufa, Russia
Gulnara Obydennova
Department of General History and Cultural Heritage, Bashkir State Pedagogical University Named after Akmulla M., October Revolution 3-a, 450008 Ufa, Russia
Andrey Kungurtsev
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Ural Federal University Named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Mira 19, 620002 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Niyaz Atnabaev
Department of General History and Cultural Heritage, Bashkir State Pedagogical University Named after Akmulla M., October Revolution 3-a, 450008 Ufa, Russia
Mikhail Komissarov
Laboratory of Soil Science, Ufa Institute of Biology UFRC, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Oktyabrya 69, 450054 Ufa, Russia
Artyom Gusarov
Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies, Kazan Federal University, Kremlyovskaya Str. 18, 420008 Kazan, Russia
Ilgiza Adelmurzina
Department of Geodesy, Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, Bashkir State University, Zaki Validi 32, 450076 Ufa, Russia
Azamat Suleymanov
Department of Environmental Protection and Prudent Exploitation of Natural Resources, Ufa State Petroleum Technological University, Kosmonavtov St. 1, 450064 Ufa, Russia
Evgeny Abakumov
Department of Applied Ecology, Saint Petersburg State University, 16 Line 29 Vasilyevskiy Island, 199034 Saint Petersburg, Russia
This paper presents the results of studying the soils at the archeological site of the Tyater-Araslanovo-II settlement located in the Republic of Bashkortostan, eastern European Russia. The settlement functioned in the 15th–12th centuries BCE (the Late Bronze Age). We compared the soil properties at four sites in the study area: archeological (1), buried (2), affected by long pyrogenic exposure (3), and background site (4). In soil samples, the total carbon content, the fractional composition of humus and organic matter characteristics, alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen, total phosphorus, mobile phosphorus, potassium, absorbed calcium and magnesium, pH, particle size distribution, basal soil respiration, and optical density were estimated. The study results showed the anthropogenic impact on the archeological site’s soils. The newly formed AU horizon at the archeological site (1), affected by the cattle summer camp, was richer in soil nutrients and agrochemical properties, namely, the content of exchangeable and gross forms of phosphorus, alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen, and exchange cations of the soil absorbing complex compared to the reference soil (4). For the pyrogenic layer (AU[hh]pyr) from the ancient furnace (fireplace) (3), the mobile and total forms of phosphorus were several times higher than those in the reference soil (4) but inferior regarding other agrochemical parameters. Thus, the activities of ancient people (especially cattle breeding) greatly influenced the properties of the soil.
