OFF-SITE ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE FOREST ZONE: APPROACHES TO DELINEATING THE AREAS OF SWIDDEN CULTIVATION
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-10-18

It’s believed that the slash-and-burn cultivation (SABC) was practiced at least since the Bronze Age, with the extent of the areas affected by SABC increasing drastically in the Iron Age. Numerous archaeological cultures were associated with the SABC subsistence based on the evidence for plant cultivation in the absence of agricultural implements and frequent changes in the location of dwelling sites. Given the extent of the SABC, its traces in the modern forested landscapes must be ubiquitous, but its diagnostic features in the soil are unknown. Due to the elusiveness of the archaeological evidence, the visibility of SABC was inferred mainly from the palynological analysis of lake and bog sediments that did not allow for a site-oriented reconstruction. Our multi-proxy analysis of forest soils affected by SABC in 19th century revealed several common features that were attributed to the swidden agriculture:
- Thin (5 to 12cm) dark-colored humus layers with a characteristic scalloped lower boundary, formed by numerous round spots, 1 to
1.5cm in diameter;
- High concentration of dispersed charcoal fragments with the median length of 4-5mm;
- Low proportion or absence of charred bark in the charcoal assemblage, presence of charred foliage (e.g. needles, cones, buds);
- A rounded/pebbly shape of charcoal fragments with the average width to length ratio ~0.7;
- Extensive silt coating on the surface of charcoal fragments;
- Noticeably higher proportion of silt in the pyrogenic layers compared to the below-bedded layers due to the input of phytoliths;
- A high percentage of arboreal taxa with a proportion of fire-dependant taxa, such as Onagraceae pollen and Marshantia spores in
the soil pollen spectra.
The diagnostic features were applied to delineate areas of SABC in modern and buried soils in the vicinity from the Early Iron Age archaeological sites of the Bolgar-Svyazhsk area, Tatarstan, Russia.


Author(s): Ponomarenko, Elena (Kazan Federal University; University of Ottawa) - Ershova, Ekaterina (Moscow State Lomonossov University; Kazan Federal University) - Vyazov, Leonid (Kazan Federal University) - Blinnikov, Mikhail (St Cloud State University)