Laimdota Kalnina

Pollen and Plant Macroremain Analyses for the Reconstruction of Environmental Changes in the Early Metal Period

A sharp increase in human population density and the same time fundamental changes in the location of settlement, moving away from earlier inhabited places points to significant changes in the environment. This period with a sharp decrease in anthropogenic indicators and poor records of slash and burn cultivation and field crop-growing is named “transition” period (Vasks et.al.1998) and indicates the lack of stable and continuous inhabitant sites. This phenomena can be explained by the small size of settlements at the Early Iron Age, expressed by a weak cultural layer and these could be defined as separate farmsteads. Modern farming practices, especially modern tillage, adversely affected the preservation of these settlements. Pollen and plant macrofossil analyses were used as tool to discover traces of human activity and environmental changes during the Early Metal Period.