The Last Hundred Years of Land Use History in the Southern Part of Valdai Hills (European Russia): Reconstruction by Pollen and Historical Data
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Studia Quaternaria, vol. 34, no. 2 (2017): 73–81 DOI: 10.1515/squa-2017-0006 THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS OF LAND USE HISTORY IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF VALDAI HILLS (EUROPEAN RUSSIA): RECONSTRUCTION BY POLLEN AND HISTORICAL DATA Elena Novenko1,2*, Pavel Shilov1, Dmitry Khitrov1, Daniil Kozlov1,3 1 M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie gory 1, 119991, Moscow, Russia; e-mail: [email protected] 2 Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science, Staromonetny lane, 29, 119017, Moscow, Russia 3 V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, Pyzhevsky lane 7/2, 119017, Moscow, Russia * corresponding author Abstract The last one hundred years of land use history in the southern part of Valdai Hills (European Russia) were reconstructed on the base of high resolution pollen data from the peat monolith taken from the Central Forest State Reserve supple- menting with historical records derived from maps of the General Land Survey of the 18th and 19th centuries and satellite images. According to the created age model provided by dating using radio-nuclides 210Pb and 137Cs, pollen data of the peat monolith allow us to reconstruct vegetation dynamics during the last one hundred years with high time resolution. The obtained data showed that, despite the location of the studied peatland in the center of the forest area and rather far away from possible croplands and hayfields, the pollen values of plants – anthropogenic indicators (Secale sereale, Centaurea cyanus, Plantago, Rumex, etc.) and micro-charcoal concentration are relatively high in the period since the beginning of the 20th century to the 1970s, especially in the peat horizon formed in the 1950s. In the late 1970s – the early 1980s when the pollen values of cereals gradually diminished in assemblages, the quantity of pollen of other anthropogenic indicators were also significantly reduced, which reflects the overall processes of the agriculture decline in the forest zone of the former USSR. Key words: pollen analysis, peatland, land use history, the Central Forest State Reserve Manuscript received 27 March 2017, accepted 6 November 2017 INTRODUCTION 1992; Broström et al., 1998; Sugita et al., 1999; Mitchell, 2005). The further advantage in reconstructions of land Reconstructions of human influence on land use and cover changes is the application of sophisticated models, vegetation is an essential issue in the modern palaeoeco- such as the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (Sugita logical studies. Since the Neolithic epoch, the arable farm- 2007), which were used to reconstruct regional and local ing, grazing, trampling, etc., were key factors influenc- vegetation dynamics in different regions of Europe during ing the spatial vegetation distribution (Taavitsainen et al., the Holocene (Gaillard et al., 2008; Soepboer and Lotter, 1998; Vuorela et al., 2001; Kalis et al., 2003; Niinemets 2009; Nielsen et al., 2012; Hultberg et al., 2015). and Saarse, 2009; Gaillard et al., 2010; Kirleis et al., 2012). A number of palaeoecological studies show the impor- The most widely used approach for the qualitative inter- tance of adapting various historical data such as maps, pretation of pollen assemblages in terms of past land-uses chronicles, taxpayer lists, results of land survey and pho- is the indicator species analyses (Behre, 1981; Vuorela, tographs together with proxy data from natural archives 1986; Ralska-Jasiewiczowa, 1977; Vorren, 1986; Koff (Axelsson et al., 2002; Veski et al., 2005; Glaser and and Punning, 2002; Zernitskaya and Mikhailov, 2009; Riemann, 2009; Mazier et al., 2015) for land-use history Niinemets and Saarse, 2009; Josefsson et al., 2014; Saarse reconstruction. The majority of these studies are focused et al., 2010) as well as using relatively simple statistical on densely inhabited European regions where landscapes models that relate percentages of arboreal and non-arboreal were strongly transformed by human activity over a hun- pollen to landscape openness (Frenzel et al., 1992; Rösch, dred years. At the same time, in the area of the boreal forest 74 E. NOVENKO et al. forests, peatlands, meadows with shrubs arable lands settlements roads position of the borehole a) b) Fig. 1. Location of the study area and land use structure at the end of 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries (a) and at present (b). with low human impact, records about human-vegetation cultural markets and industrial centers, a status as the state relationship become scarce, the pollen evidence becomes boundary during the relatively long period, weak develop- weaker and more controversial (Hicks and Birks, 1996). ments of roads created difficulties for agricultural land use The area of the Central Forest State Natural Biosphere in the territories. As a result, human impact on landscapes Reserve (CFSNBR) located in the southern part of the has been very low for a long time (Novenko et al., 2009), Valdai Hills has been chosen as a key region to study land which allowed us to study human activity in the relatively use history in the central part of European Russia (Fig. 1). undisturbed forest region. The place encompasses an extensive area of wetlands and The Holocene history of vegetation and land use of the low soil fertility, a situation far away from the main agri- Valdai Hills was intensively investigated in a wide range of THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS OF LAND USE HISTORY 75 palaeogeographical studies (Karimov and Nosova, 1999; due to an extensive area of wetlands and clayey poor soil Minayeva et al., 2008; Novenko et al., 2009; Payne et al., was supplemented with a lack of hays and green fodder for 2016; Olchev et al., 2017). The present studies are based on cattle that supplied the main source of organic fertilizer for high-resolution pollen sequences and historical maps for the arable lands. As a result of natural conditions and histor- last centuries. The aim of this paper is simultaneous analysis ical processes, a structure of land use and settlements in of recent land use in the Central Forest Biosphere Reserve the area of the CFSNBR was characterized by a complex by historical and pollen data and an identification of fine- pattern including vast areas of forests and wetlands inter- scale human impact by changes in pollen assemblages. spersed with small inhabited and plowed lands. Pollen data and age-depth model for peat core used in present studies have already been partly presented by Olchev et al. (2017) in the study focused on the analysis of MATERIALS AND METHODS relationships between pollen accumulation rates of woody taxa and selected herbaceous plants with local climate Peat core sampling and age-depth model conditions. The complete pollen data have not been pub- lished. A peat monolith with a thickness of 65 cm was taken using a Wardenar’ peat profile sampler during the field cam- paign in August 2013. The monolith consisted completely of THE HISTORY OF LAND USE AND low decomposed (7–10%) cottongrass-sphagnum peat. The POPULATION OF THE TERRITORY peat block was continuously sliced into samples with 1 cm thickness. Archeological findings within the CFSNBR are not yet The age-depth models were based on radio-nuclides known. In the historical chronicles of X–XII centuries, the 210Pb (a constant rate of supply modeling and linear regres- area occupied by the Reserve nowadays was mentioned as a sion model) and a measurement of 137Cs (Fig. 2) (Olchev part of a vast, pathless forest, the massive “Okovsky Forest” et al., 2017). According to these data, the age of the low- (Karimov and Nosova, 1999). By this time, the territory, at ermost sample of the peat monolith is about 1912 AD. least for some centuries, was settled by East Slavic tribes, Each sample within the uppermost 10 cm of peat profile expelling and assimilating the Ugro-Finnic population. corresponds to 1 year of sediment accumulation, and at the According to historical records, since the beginning of depths between 10 cm and 65 cm time resolution increased the XIV century and until the Russian-Polish War in 1654– to several years. 1667, the area of the Reserve during several long periods was located near the state border (Krom, 1995; Khitrov and Pakhunov, 2013). In this region the state matters of the Grand Principality of Lithuania, Muscovy and Poland col- lided and the territory repeatedly passed into the possession of one or the other state (Dumin, 2010). In the first decades of XVII century (so called “Time of Troubles”), marked by several natural disasters, civil war, Polish-Swedish in- tervention in Russia and political and socio-economic de- pression, the area of the CFSNBR was a place of severe warfare, and it was repeated in the 1650s, when Russia managed to finally move the border to the west. These led to the depopulation of the area and the decline of the eco- nomy and agriculture (Florja, 1998). In XVIII century, European Russia was characterized by rapid growth of its economy and population. Maximum anthropogenic activity in the Tver’ region occurred in the second half of the XVIII century (Borisenkov and Pasetski, 2002). The area of arable land and hayfields in the land-use structure reached its highest level. According to the eco- nomic notes to the General Land survey, the area of arable Fig. 2. Age-depth model of the peat monolith from the Staroselsky peat bog, calculated with Linear Regression Model (LRM) and Constant Rate of lands in 1780 reached 15% (Karimov and Nosova, 1999). Pb-210 Supply model (CRS); triangle indicates a maximum of 137Cs acti- The density of the population grew up to 5 peoples/km2, vity, corresponding to the Chernobyl fallout (after Olchev et al., 2017). while in other parts of the Tver’ region its value exceeded 10 people/km2. The potential limit for agricultural expansion was Pollen analysis reached in the XIX century and after that the agriculture gradually declined.