First absolute chronologies of neolithic and bronze age settlements at Lake Ohrid based on dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating

The role of fire disturbances, human activities and climate change for long-term forest dynamics in upper-montane forests of the central Dinaric Alps

“…at Okolište, Bosnia-Herzegovina; de Vareilles et al, 2022). While this is about 1000 years later than the age of Neolithic settlements on the shores of the lowland Lake Ohrid (Hafner et al, 2021) and 2000 years later than the earliest Starčevo and Butmir culture Neolithic settlements in the inland of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Vander Linden et al, 2014), the Secale pollen finds support the view that Neolithic novelties, albeit with a certain time lag, spread in the hinterland of Montenegro (Borić et al, 2019).…”

“…at Okolište, Bosnia-Herzegovina; de Vareilles et al, 2022). While this is about 1000 years later than the age of Neolithic settlements on the shores of the lowland Lake Ohrid (Hafner et al, 2021) and 2000 years later than the earliest Starčevo and Butmir culture Neolithic settlements in the inland of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Vander Linden et al, 2014), the Secale pollen finds support the view that Neolithic novelties, albeit with a certain time lag, spread in the hinterland of Montenegro (Borić et al, 2019). Although Neolithic sites have not yet been found in the Durmitor area, there is evidence of Neolithic occupation sites at 20-35 km distance (Odmut rock shelter; Borić et al, 2019), suggesting that inland mountain areas may be archaeologically under surveyed (Vander Linden et al, 2014).…”

Dendroarchaeology in Europe

“…Other forms of preservation are associated with the deposition in a biotoxic environment, for example, in the famous Hallstatt saltmines, Austria (Herzig, 2009;Reschreiter and Kowarik, 2019;Haneca and Deforce, 2020;Grabner et al, 2021), and the chemical alterations of the wood tissue through carbonization and mineralization (Chabal, 1997;Tegel et al, 2016a;Haneca and Deforce, 2020). However, the most important form of wood preservation is provided by waterlogged conditions, frequently discovered at archaeological excavations, for example in water wells and other features below the groundwater level (Kretschmer et al, 2016;Croutsch et al, 2020), from pile dwellings in lakes and bogs (e.g., Bleicher, 2009;Tarrús, 2018;Benguerel et al, 2020;Hafner et al, 2021;Pranckënaitë et al, 2021), shipwrecks at the bottom of seas, lakes and rivers (e.g., Domínguez-Delmás et al, 2013;Nayling and Susperregi, 2014;Daly et al, 2021) and paleo-channels (Pilcher et al, 1977;Becker et al, 1985;Leuschner and Sass-Klaassen, 2003;Edvardsson et al, 2016b; Figure 1). Waterlogged wooden objects can be preserved for millennia (Thieme, 1997;Tegel et al, 2012;Rybníček et al, 2020).…”

The untapped potential of macrofossils in ancient plant DNA research

“…Besides macrofossils preserved in lake sediments, plant aDNA has also been extracted from waterlogged, subfossil wood remains found in archaeological or sedimentological contexts (Lendvay et al, 2018b;Wagner et al, 2018). Such remains are widely used in dendroclimatology and chronology to reconstruct past climatic conditions or precisely date wood remains based on tree-ring patterns (B€ untgen et al, 2011;Hafner et al, 2021). In the most comprehensive study to date, 167 waterlogged wood remains from European white oaks have been analyzed using high throughput sequencing (HTS) (Wagner et al, 2018).…”