Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze Age barrows in Bukivna, Western Ukraine as a sourse to understand soil evolution and its environmental significance

Abstract

Barrows play an important role in paleoenvironmental studies. This research, conducted on macromorphology (descriptive), micromorphology (thin-section), physical and chemical properties of a burial mound necropolis located in the western part of Ukraine (near Bukivna village), aimed to reconstruct the climatic conditions and landscape of the area during the Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze Ages, when they were erected. The analysis of pedogenic and post-depositional processes has made it possible to determine the evolution of soils beginning around 4000 BP. Three phases of change in vegetation, climate, and soil conditions have been distinguished. Between 6000 and 4200 BP, the brown forest soil formed at the beginning of Subboreal period. Later, the formation of chernozems (Chernozems) took place between 4200 and 3300 BP, chernozems (Chernozems) formed, at an increasing rate as meadow and meadow-forest which led to the continental climate spread through the area, while in the Forecarpahians forest areas their transformation into gray forest soils (Luvic Phaeozems) is visible, and podzolized brown soils (Dystric or Haplic Cambisols) developed about 150 BP in a cooler and much more humid climate conditions than were present in the beginning of the Subboreal period. From the present study it was concluded that post-depositional processes, such as podzolization, lessivage, and illimerization, change the original properties of soils, while others, like the activity of fauna, result in krotovinas filled with original humus, and makes it easier to recognize fossil soils.