Arheobotanical And Phytolith Research In The Settlement Of Biryuzovaya Katun VII

In 2010 the employees of Altai State University continued the research of the settlement of Biryuzovaya Katun-7 (Altai Region, Altai Krai). The significant site is placed on the area of the valley of Katun river, in its bottomland the tallgrass pine forests with the relicts of deciduous forests of Miocene-Pliocene are developed. In 2010 the remains of two dwellings were looked into. In the «eastern» a bronze knife and an awl were found, as well as two whole ceramic spindle whorls and two fragments, two bony and one bronze arrowheads and the remains of five can typed patterned vessels. In the «western» housing two ceramic spindles and the remains of several vessels ornamented on the rim with notches and pearls were found. Such ceramics are often discovered in the settlement complexes of Altai of the Early Iron Age of the 2nd half of the first millennium BC, as well as in the funerary monuments dating back up to the second and first millennium BC. During the research of the year 2010 soil and microbiomorphic analyses were carried out in the area. The background of forest soils and cultural layer of the two dwellings were analyzed. The following physical and chemical analyses were conducted: determination of granulometric composition, determination of total phosphorus, determination of the acidity of soil solutions (pH), the definition of organic carbon (Tyurin's method); microbiomorphic analysis. In the eastern dwelling there is a typical for the cultural layer trend of accumulation of phosphorus. It can be suggested, that the floor was covered by some grass litter. In the western dwelling such a litter was not found. The presence of the equal amount of the pollen grains in all samples of the sections of cultural layer accumulation provides the suggestion, that that was an open house, perhaps in the form of a shed or with wide doorways. All modern spore-pollen spectra contain grains of pine (this is natural in the modern landscape). The absence of pine pollen in the samples of cultural layers indicates a treeless landscape character of the period of the settlement. The large amount of woody detritus in the series of samples of the cultural layer indicates a large deforestation in the settlement and around it, i.e. the occupying of the territory was accompanied by a significant rearrangement of the landscape. The results of the chemical analyses, including the value of total phosphorus, do not point to a long and intense habitation area. Probably, people lived here not so long or just seasonally. In all three sections, there are signs of repeated fires with a certain interval. At the same time traces of the early fire are connected with the final stages of the settlement. It is possible that both phenomena - the fire and the subsequent neglect are related. A more recent fire, most likely, took place after a long time and burned the grown-up forest which means it was a natural, not natural-anthropogenic disaster.

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