New insight into the palaeoenvironmental dynamics as a background of the human history in the Nemunas River delta region, W Lithuania, throughout the Lateglacial and Early Holocene

Abstract

A new reconstruction of the Lateglacial – Early Holocene paleoenvironmental dynamics as a background of the habitation history in the territory of the Nemunas River Delta (NRD) was based on the geological-geomorphological, grain-size, isotope (14C), pollen and diatom data supplemented by archaeological information obtained within the framework of the project „Man and Baltic Sea in the Meso-Neolithic: Relict Coasts and Settlements Below and Above Present Sea Level. ReCoasts&People“. The existence of extended proglacial lakes formed during the onset of the Lateglacial was succeeded by a period of low water estuaries or freshwater lagoons as early as 13.8 cal kyr BP. Simultaneously, groups of the Final Palaeolithic population, representing the classic Swiderian culture, inhabited the area. As shores of the Yoldia Sea and Ancylus Lake were situated further westwards (-11 to -24 – -29 m NN), wetlands and lake systems alongside with shallow boggy basins and fluvial streams predominated in the local landscape throughout the Early Holocene. Archaeological data suggest an episodic human activity in the territory while part of the archaeological sites might have been covered by sediments during the further intervals of the Holocene. Since the Early Holocene an extended peat bogs have become an important part of the landscape here.