Refine
Document Type
Institute
BTU
Palaeoenvironmental investigations were carried out in the Siedlungskammer (prehistoric settlement area) Burgweinting (Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany) to reveal past settlement conditions and human impact on the environment. Two sequences were obtained from the Islinger Mühlbach Fen, in close proximity to the archaeological excavation site in Burgweinting, which documents an almost continuous settlement history since the Neolithic Period. The analyses of the sequences comprise stratigraphic, geochemical and microscopic charcoal analyses. For chronological information, radiocarbon dating was conducted on a total of 10 samples. Thus, the first long-term fire record was reconstructed for the investigation area, and the results were correlated, based on radiocarbon dating, with the available environmental information and settlement history in the Siedlungskammer Burgweinting. The fire record reveals an almost continuous, but alternating fire history. Furthermore, it shows that fire played an important role in the Siedlungskammer Burgweinting and that most probably as early as the Mesolithic hunterer–gatherers deliberately used fire.
Ostbayerische Mittelgebirge
(2007)
Analysis of 288 percussion drillings from depths of up to seven meters and a 120 m long excavated section provide new and detailed information on the Late Quaternary to Late Holocene floodplain evolution from the most important Central European iron-mining region of the 15th century. The generalized sequence of the Vils River floodplain is built of five units representing facies of different genesis (rock/saprolite, gravel, sand, loam, peat) that are identified by physical, chemical, and mineralogical parameters (grain size, clast shape, and content, TOC, bulk mineralogy). Along the 87 km length of the valley, different units/facies are found at the Upper Vils River (UVR 1-5) and at the Lower Vils River (LVR 1-4b). In both river sections, fine-grained material (flood loam) forms the major part (up to 4 m) of the alluvial sequence. 29 age determinations (24 14C, 4 IRSL, 1 tree-ring analysis) show increasing accumulation of flood loam in the last millennium. The data correlate with the beginning of mining at the Vils River and hence suggest a causal connection with mining activities in the catchment—both on the slopes and in the floodplain—with intense deposition of flood loams.