Towards the vegetation and settlement history of the southern Dobrudza coastal region, north-eastern Bulgaria: A pollen diagram from Lake Durankulak

Abstract

Abstract. Palynological investigation and radiocarbondating of a 6-m core from lake Durankulak, north-eastern Bulgaria, enables vegetation development and human occupation from ca. 5500-5300 cal. B.C. onwards to be traced. Steppe vegetation that included with groves of deciduous trees as Quercus, Ulmus, Carpinus betulus and Corylus changed to a forest-steppe after 4000 cal.B.C. The archaeopalynological record indicates three distinct phases of human activity as follows: (1) 5300-4200 cal. B.C. (late Neolithic and Eneolithic) during which farming, that included a substantial arable component, was pursued, (2) 3500-3000 cal. B.C. (transition to early Bronze Age) when stock rearing appears to have dominated, and (3) after 1300 cal. B.C. (late Bronze Age) when arable farming again assumed importance. The palynological data correlate well with the rich archaeological record for human settlement that is available for the region from late Neolithic times onwards.

Holocene persistence of wooded steppe in the Great Hungarian Plain

“…In this regard, the late glacial and Holocene fossil pollen records suggest that steppe persisted until between c. 8300 and 7920 cal. yr bp along the north‐west Black Sea coast and in the Lower Danube basin in north Bulgaria (Bozilova & Beug, 1994; Bozilova & Tonkov, 1998; Atanassova, 2005), but that temperate deciduous trees increased in abundance in these areas thereafter. Whereas this increase resulted in the occupation of coastal areas of Bulgaria by temperate deciduous wooded steppe, temperate deciduous woodlands apparently occupied the lower Danube Plain.…”

The natural history of the fallow deer, Dama dama (Linnaeus, 1758) in Bulgaria in prehistory and new evidence for the existence of an autochthonous Holocene population in the Balkans

“…During this period, there are few indications of human activity, which may be due to poor soils and the dense forests (Bozilova & Tonkov, 1998 the Mediterranean faunal complex, including fallow deer, especially in the southern and southeastern part of the country (Spassov & Popov, 2007, p. 56). According to archaeological evidence (summarized below), there was a strong presence of fallow deer in the typical biotopes of southeastern Bulgaria during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic.…”

The transformation of the forest steppe in the lower Danube Plain of south-eastern Europe: 6000 years of vegetation and land use dynamic

“…Warmer conditions were reconstructed from stable isotopes in stalagmites in SW Romania (Dragusin et al, 2014), along with an intensification of fluvial activity in several rivers in southern Romania and southern part of the Danube river at this time (Bozilova and Tonkov, 1998;Filipova-Marinova et al, 2007;Howard et al, 2004;Persoiu, 2010). Coastal lakes along the Black Sea were also at higher water levels at this time, whereas the Black Sea's level fluctuated strongly (Lamy et al, 2006).…”