The aim of the geoarchaeological project was to understand how the natural environmental conditions influenced the settlement activity in a steppe area near to permanent water sources and how the steppe landscape developed under human activity and changing climate conditions.
Research
Research activities in the Don delta region
The lower reaches of the river Don and its delta are outstanding areas within the semi-arid, steppic landscape of the Azov Lowland, northeast of the Azov Sea. In contrast to the dry and ecological sensitive steppic hinterland, the delta, as well as the Bay of Taganrog, in which the Don empties, provide permanent water sources and relative stable living conditions.
It is exactly the delta and the coastline, where prehistoric burial grounds and settlements can be found, also for those periods in which the steppe seems to be dry and depopulated (such as in the Scythian and Sarmatian Iron Ages, 1000-200 BC).
The aim of the geoarchaeological project was to understand how the natural environmental conditions influenced the settlement activity in a steppe area near to permanent water sources and how the steppe landscape developed under human activity and changing climate conditions.
At the Sambek, a small steppe river 15 km west of the Don delta we analysed terrestrial archives together with the spatial and chronological variation of prehistoric settlement patterns. By analysing the sediments´ physical and chemical characteristics and palaeoecological records, phases of landscape stability (e.g. soil development, vegetation cover) and landscape activity (processes of erosion, transport and accumulation) could be identified for a period covering the last 9000 years. The results were correlated with the archaeological research about the settlement intensity in the Don Delta Region.
This dissertation project was successfully completed in 2017:
Marlen Schlöffel, Geoarchäologische und sedimentologische Untersuchungen im Hinterland der Bucht von Taganrog. Eine Lokalstudie zur holozänen Landschaftsgeschichte im nordöstlichen Schwarzmeerraum, Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2017