ИСТИНА

Buried soils of archaeological monuments are important archives of past environments. Late Holocene archaeological sites are widely spread in the forest, forest-steppe and steppe zones of the East European Plain and have a long study history. However, the regional and local environmental trends remain uncertain. We focus on comparative study of the paleoclimatic conditions and landscape dynamics in different climatic zones of the East European Plain based on soil chronosequences that include soils buried under burial mounds of the Bronze age and Medieval time and defensive earth walls of fortified settlements of the Early Iron Age and the surface soils formed in similar sediments and similar landscape position. Objects of research are located in different natural areas: broad-leaved forests, forest-steppe and steppe. Nozha-Var settlement and burial mound in Tsivilsk are located in the broad-leaved forest (Chuvash Republic), three settlements were studied in the central part of the forest-steppe zone (Lipetsk region), in the south part of forest-steppe zone buried soils under the fortified wall of Scythian settlements were studied. Two large uneven-aged groups of burial mounds, which were located not far from each other in the Orenburg region, were investigated in the steppe zone. The relevance of the study is based on a multidisciplinary approach that includes a combination of conventional and state-of-the-art methods, including isotopic, biomorph (pollen, phytoliths), morphogenetic studies of both soil and sediment features at various hierarchical levels (macromorphology, mesomorphology, micromorphology, electron microscope), geochemistry and the study of soil microbiome. Age determination was based on radiocarbon dating of various substances (coal, carbonates, humus, wood, bones, and ceramics) and a set of existing archaeological data.