- Email: [email protected]
The impact of Late-Holocene environmental change on the Mediterranean mountainous Bügdüz River system, southwest Turkey
126
Abstracts / Quaternary International 279-280 (2012) 121–232
flow and former ice stream activity in the Malin Shelf region. However, the most striking geomorphological features along the entire margin are sequences of well developed kilometre scale arcuate moraine ridges that arch across the shelf to the northwest and west of Ireland. Distal to all of these moraines on the outermost shelf prominent zones of iceberg scours are evident and give way into a well developed system of gullies and canyons which incise the continental slope. The large-scale, arcuate moraines record the episodic retreat, probably punctuated by minor readvances or oscillations, of grounded ice sheet lobes along the entire western margin. The data indicates that a major reorganisation of the British Irish Ice Sheet occurred in this region during deglaciation from an initial elongate ice sheet configuration extending to the shelf edge to pronounced lobate forms during ice retreat. GLACIAL MOUNTAIN VEGETATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Lydie Dupont. University of Bremen / MARUM, Germany E-mail address: [email protected]
Terrestrial pollen records from southern Africa suggest a strong extension of the mountainous ericaceous vegetation during the Last Glacial. Here, we present a pollen record of the marine core MD96-2048 retrieved by the Marion Dufresne from the Indian Ocean w120 km south of the Limpopo River mouth (26 10'S 34 01'E in 660 m water depth). Our record corroborates the extension of open mountainous scrubland (including elements with affinity to the Cape Flora) for the Last Glacial as well as for other glacial periods of the past 300 ka. The sedimentation at the site of MD96-2048 is slow and continuous. The upper 6 meters (down till 350 ka) have been analysed for pollen and spores at millennial resolution. The terrestrial pollen assemblages indicate that during interglacials the vegetation of eastern South Africa and southern Mozambique largely consisted of evergreen and deciduous forests. During glacials open mountainous shrubland dominated. Montane forest with Podocarpus was favoured during intermediate periods. The pattern strongly suggests a shifting of altitudinal vegetation belts in the mountains primarily depending on temperature, although the effects of low atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations cannot be excluded. We compare our results from eastern South Africa with a marine pollen record from the eastern South Atlantic off the coast of Angola (ODP Site 1078). The vegetation and climate of southern Africa seems to follow a mid to high latitude rhythm, in which the glacial-interglacial contrast is more important than the precessional forced monsoon system of tropical Africa. OPTICALLY STIMULATED LUMINESCENCE DATING OF THE ‘LOST’ SARASWATI RIVER – THE ROLE OF CHANGING FLUVIAL ACTIVITY IN THE ‘COLLAPSE’ OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION Julie Durcan. Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberyst, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected]
The ‘lost’ Saraswati River is hypothesised to have flowed through modernday Pakistan and India during the mid-Holocene and to have been a primary source of water to the Indus Valley or Harappan civilisation, which occupied the area at this time. It has been suggested that a decline, and ultimately cessation, of flow in this river system in response to the weakening of the Asian Monsoon was influential in the collapse of this civilisation about 4,000 years ago. There is a strongly contested and ongoing debate as to the importance of climatic variability to the demise of the Harappan culture. Some authors advocate that controls such as tectonic activity are more influential upon fluvial activity in the region, while others argue that environmentally deterministic views ignore the importance of cultural development and evolution, and that the Harappans were able to adapt to variability in their environment, and that their civilisation did not collapse. This paper presents optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates from palaeochannel sediments and associated dune deposits that together constrain Holocene fluvial activity in the region. OSL dates indicate deposition of sediments by fluvial processes during the early to mid-Holocene, at a time when the Harappans were flourishing in the region, with aeolian deposition (and drier conditions)
during the past millennium. This work permits for the first time a comparison between the documented archaeological record of the Harappan civilisation and an absolute chronology of regional fluvial activity. It also provides a direct test of whether the collapse/transformation of the Harappan civilisation can be correlated with regional climatic variability and/or local geomorphological change. SUBGLACIAL TUNNEL VALLEYS IN THE ALPINE FORELAND - AN EXAMPLE FROM BERN, SWITZERLAND Mirjam Dürst Stucki. Institute of Geological Sciences, Switzerland E-mail address: [email protected]
The morphology of the Alpine and adjacent landscapes is directly related to glacial erosion and associated sediment transport. Here we report the effects of glacio-hydrologic erosion on bedrock topography in the Swiss Plateau. Specifically, we identify the presence of subsurface valleys beneath the city of Bern and discuss their genesis. Stratigraphic investigations of more than 4000 borehole data within a 430 km2-large area reveal the presence of a network of >200 m-deep and 1000 m-wide valleys. They are flat floored with steep sided walls and are filled by Quaternary glacial deposits. The central valley beneath Bern is straight and oriented towards the NNW, with valley flanks more than 20 steep. The valley bottom has an irregular undulating profile along the thalweg, with differences between sills and hollows higher than 50–100 m over a reach of 4 kilometres length. Approximately 500 m high bedrock highlands flank the valley network. The highlands are dissected by up to 80 m-deep and 500 m-broad hanging valleys that currently drain away from the axis of the main valley. We interpret the valleys beneath the city of Bern to be a tunnel valley network which originated from subglacial erosion by melt water. The highland valleys served as proglacial meltwater paths and are hanging with respect to the trunk system, indicating that these incipient highland systems as well as the main gorge beneath Bern formed by glacial melt water under pressure. SIMULATING HOLOCENE SHIFTS IN EUROPEAN TREE DISTRIBUTION WITH DYNAMIC VEGETATION MODELS
SPECIES
Marie Dury. University of Liège, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Pollen and macro-fossil data collected from various localities in Europe provide the opportunity to reconstruct the speed and the routes of the post-glacial spread of European tree species. Moving from a limited number of refugia at the end of the glacial period, tree species have progressively re-colonized the continent through the Holocene at seemingly species-specific migration rates. However, the relative roles of climatic fluctuations, dispersal capacities of individual species, and interspecific competition in controlling these rates remains controversial. Here, we investigate these different aspects with two dynamic vegetation models (DVM), LPJ-GUESS and CARAIB. Transient runs of both models were performed over the Holocene, using HadCM3 GCM-reconstructed climate. Large-scale species migration at 0.5 0.5 is represented in these models using migration rates derived from a small-scale cellular automaton, CATS. Individual tree species migration rates were pre-calculated with CATS every 1000 years over each grid cell used by the DVMs in the climatic conditions reconstructed by the GCM. In the DVMs, these migration speeds were influenced by the response to competition from other species. The DVMs were used to study the migration of one species, from its 10 kyr BP refugia, within a landscape defined by a set of other species for which no dispersal limitations are assumed. Here, we illustrate the results obtained for three wind-dispersed tree species: Abies alba, Picea abies, Fagus sylvatica and compare them to their past distributions reconstructed from pollen and macro-fossil data. THE IMPACT OF LATE-HOLOCENE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN MOUNTAINOUS BÜGDÜZ RIVER SYSTEM, SOUTHWEST TURKEY Bert Dusar. K.U.Leuven, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Abstracts / Quaternary International 279-280 (2012) 121–232
127
The archaeological record in the territory of Sagalassos along with ample environmental proxy data has clearly indicated several periods of differing pressure on the physical landscape in the 260 km2 Bügdüz river catchment. These environmental changes are reflected in both colluvial and alluvial deposits, from which over 200 cores and 155 radiocarbon dates were retrieved. This dataset enabled quantification of sediment dynamics for the main historical periods. Additionally, it gives insight in the changing sediment fluxes through time, which could be linked with the main geomorphic driving forces (climate, vegetation, land-use change). Moreover, a modelling approach, validated by the field data, added to the identification of the relative impact of the driving forces on the Bügdüz river system. Results show that land-use changes related to the initial occupation of small catchments caused a sudden response in valley sedimentation. Downstream the Bügdüz river system, sediment archives do not reflect environmental change as directly, as time lags and system internal response become more pronounced. Furthermore, for periods subsequent to the initial major anthropogenic impact, increased topsoil stone content causes erosion rates to be significantly lower, hence not only reflecting the magnitude of environmental change. Therefore, sedimentation rates in the Bügdüz river catchment show a distinct peak during the Roman period, with lower rates for more recent periods with arguably equal pressure on the environment.
differentiating between small scale colluvial sedimentation phases and larger scale alluvial deposition periods. Using the available chronological information, cumulative probability functions (CPFs) were compiled, taking variations in the radiocarbon calibration curve into account by dividing by a CPF from equally spaced ages. From these CPFs periods of activity could be derived, and the CPFs from subsets enabled the identification of periods of enhanced colluvial and alluvial deposition. Results show that colluvial sedimentation started well before Roman times in small upland catchments, although there is some variability between the various sites. In the larger scale catchment, coarse sediment deposition was largely restricted to the same period in the 1st millennium BCE, while valley wide overbank deposits generally date to the Late Roman period. During the last millennium, sedimentation is more restricted to the downstream valley, as plausibly reworking of older deposits is the main process, but no sediment activity in the upland catchments can be traced.
MODELING EROSION AND SEDIMENT TRANSPORT SINCE THE ONSET OF AGRICULTURE FOR TWO CATCHMENTS IN CONTRASTING ENVIRONMENTS
The influence of Late Pleistocene climatic changes on early Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) living in Southern Africa is unclear. We examine the changes in shellfish at Blombos Cave and Klasies River and mammal prey spectra at a number of Middle Stone Age sites in South Africa to determine how the changing climate influenced subsistence strategies during the last glacial. We focus on the impact of the first pleniglacial, MIS 4. During this stage global temperatures dropped significantly. In South Africa this may have been accompanied by increased aridity. We examined both the shellfish and mammal faunal spectra for climatic indicators. The shellfish spectra suggest that a slight cooling trend may be visible in the Still Bay assemblages from Blombos Cave. The mammal assemblages suggest that no dramatic climatic changes are reflected at the sites. We have looked at the diet breadth reflected at the sites in order to evaluate whether populations were broadening the diet as global temperatures decreased. This could signal resource stress driving people to exploit marginal resources that they would not have exploited otherwise. The shellfish spectra of Blombos show a shift in prey choice, yet not a broadening of the diet. The diet breadth at Klasies River does not show a significant broadening of the diet either. Interestingly, the mammal assemblages at a number of sites appear to reflect a slight narrowing of the diet, suggesting that AMH living in South Africa did not experience increased resource stress during MIS 4.
Bert Dusar. K.U.Leuven, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Soil erosion and sedimentation rates are frequently linked to human impact, both in the Belgian loess belt and in the Mediterranean Taurus mountain ecosystem in southwest Turkey. However, the soil cover differs strongly between both regions: deep loess soils marked by only minor erodibility variations in the loess belt, versus shallow, stony soils with bedrock at limited depth in the Taurus. Environmental change and human impact on the landscape are well documented in both regions from archaeological findings and land use reconstructions based on pollen diagrams, supplemented by historical map study for the Belgian loess belt. Also pollen-based climate reconstructions are available, aside from the well-known historical global climate patterns. To compare both study area's response to historical environmental change, an adaptable soil erodibility factor was added to the existing Watem/Sedem model, which was used to estimate sediment fluxes within two small catchments of about 10 km2. From both catchments detailed sediment archives were available to calibrate the model. As soil properties in the Belgian loess belt are fairly homogeneous throughout the profile, variations in erosion rates are mainly due to environmental change, with human impact playing a major role. Even the removal of large amounts of topsoil and the surfacing of calcareous loess does not alter the erosion potential considerably. In contrast, the shallow soils of the Mediterranean Taurus are marked by increasing stone content with depth and mostly bedrock at shallow depth. Both control erosion potential to a large extent, as once the topmost soil layers are removed, increased topsoil stone content largely reduces soil erodibility. Moreover, bedrock outcrops account for a large area within the catchment and will yield no sediment at all. ESTABLISHMENT OF A RADIOCARBON DATABASE FOR IDENTIFYING THE CHRONOLOGY OF SEDIMENT DYNAMICS IN SW TURKEY Bert Dusar. K.U.Leuven, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Twenty years of geomorphologic research in the territory of the classical city of Sagalassos (Taurus Mountains, SW Turkey) has yielded a large amount of palaeoenvironmental information, and chronological information has accumulated to a dataset of 155 radiocarbon dates from various environmental settings. This dataset was divided into subsets following the interpretation of the dated archives, so as to enable
A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER: THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATIC CHANGES IN MIDDLE STONE AGE FORAGING BEHAVIOUR IN SOUTH AFRICA Gerrit Dusseldorp. University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa E-mail address: [email protected]
ADNA TYPING OF LEPROSY AND TUBERCULOSIS CASES IN MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA Christos Economou. Stockholm University, Sweden E-mail address: [email protected]
Leprosy and Tuberculosis have been two of the most referred to diseases of the past, influencing societies and history from the ancient to medieval world and beyond. Both pathogenies have a tendency to leave characteristic lesions on skeletal remains that can be useful to archaeologists that research on palaeopathology. The fact that these lesions are not always present though and that similar deformities can be caused by different agents, makes the use of molecular analysis that targets the bacterial DNA a useful tool that can aid this field of research. In this project we analyzed 10 human skeletons that were excavated from Sigtuna (Sweden), dated to Medieval times, for the presence of genomic sequences specific to the causative agents of Leprosy and Tuberculosis. This study adds to previous macroscopic analysis of the skeletons made by the osteoarchaeologists of the Department, so that the efficiency of both methods could be assessed. In addition, where positive results were obtained, a further aDNA analysis, using SNPs, was performed on the bacterial sequences so that the particular species and/or strains of each case could be inferred and thus add to the studies on the spread and evolution of these microbes.
Abstracts / Quaternary International 279-280 (2012) 121–232
flow and former ice stream activity in the Malin Shelf region. However, the most striking geomorphological features along the entire margin are sequences of well developed kilometre scale arcuate moraine ridges that arch across the shelf to the northwest and west of Ireland. Distal to all of these moraines on the outermost shelf prominent zones of iceberg scours are evident and give way into a well developed system of gullies and canyons which incise the continental slope. The large-scale, arcuate moraines record the episodic retreat, probably punctuated by minor readvances or oscillations, of grounded ice sheet lobes along the entire western margin. The data indicates that a major reorganisation of the British Irish Ice Sheet occurred in this region during deglaciation from an initial elongate ice sheet configuration extending to the shelf edge to pronounced lobate forms during ice retreat. GLACIAL MOUNTAIN VEGETATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Lydie Dupont. University of Bremen / MARUM, Germany E-mail address: [email protected]
Terrestrial pollen records from southern Africa suggest a strong extension of the mountainous ericaceous vegetation during the Last Glacial. Here, we present a pollen record of the marine core MD96-2048 retrieved by the Marion Dufresne from the Indian Ocean w120 km south of the Limpopo River mouth (26 10'S 34 01'E in 660 m water depth). Our record corroborates the extension of open mountainous scrubland (including elements with affinity to the Cape Flora) for the Last Glacial as well as for other glacial periods of the past 300 ka. The sedimentation at the site of MD96-2048 is slow and continuous. The upper 6 meters (down till 350 ka) have been analysed for pollen and spores at millennial resolution. The terrestrial pollen assemblages indicate that during interglacials the vegetation of eastern South Africa and southern Mozambique largely consisted of evergreen and deciduous forests. During glacials open mountainous shrubland dominated. Montane forest with Podocarpus was favoured during intermediate periods. The pattern strongly suggests a shifting of altitudinal vegetation belts in the mountains primarily depending on temperature, although the effects of low atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations cannot be excluded. We compare our results from eastern South Africa with a marine pollen record from the eastern South Atlantic off the coast of Angola (ODP Site 1078). The vegetation and climate of southern Africa seems to follow a mid to high latitude rhythm, in which the glacial-interglacial contrast is more important than the precessional forced monsoon system of tropical Africa. OPTICALLY STIMULATED LUMINESCENCE DATING OF THE ‘LOST’ SARASWATI RIVER – THE ROLE OF CHANGING FLUVIAL ACTIVITY IN THE ‘COLLAPSE’ OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION Julie Durcan. Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberyst, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected]
The ‘lost’ Saraswati River is hypothesised to have flowed through modernday Pakistan and India during the mid-Holocene and to have been a primary source of water to the Indus Valley or Harappan civilisation, which occupied the area at this time. It has been suggested that a decline, and ultimately cessation, of flow in this river system in response to the weakening of the Asian Monsoon was influential in the collapse of this civilisation about 4,000 years ago. There is a strongly contested and ongoing debate as to the importance of climatic variability to the demise of the Harappan culture. Some authors advocate that controls such as tectonic activity are more influential upon fluvial activity in the region, while others argue that environmentally deterministic views ignore the importance of cultural development and evolution, and that the Harappans were able to adapt to variability in their environment, and that their civilisation did not collapse. This paper presents optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates from palaeochannel sediments and associated dune deposits that together constrain Holocene fluvial activity in the region. OSL dates indicate deposition of sediments by fluvial processes during the early to mid-Holocene, at a time when the Harappans were flourishing in the region, with aeolian deposition (and drier conditions)
during the past millennium. This work permits for the first time a comparison between the documented archaeological record of the Harappan civilisation and an absolute chronology of regional fluvial activity. It also provides a direct test of whether the collapse/transformation of the Harappan civilisation can be correlated with regional climatic variability and/or local geomorphological change. SUBGLACIAL TUNNEL VALLEYS IN THE ALPINE FORELAND - AN EXAMPLE FROM BERN, SWITZERLAND Mirjam Dürst Stucki. Institute of Geological Sciences, Switzerland E-mail address: [email protected]
The morphology of the Alpine and adjacent landscapes is directly related to glacial erosion and associated sediment transport. Here we report the effects of glacio-hydrologic erosion on bedrock topography in the Swiss Plateau. Specifically, we identify the presence of subsurface valleys beneath the city of Bern and discuss their genesis. Stratigraphic investigations of more than 4000 borehole data within a 430 km2-large area reveal the presence of a network of >200 m-deep and 1000 m-wide valleys. They are flat floored with steep sided walls and are filled by Quaternary glacial deposits. The central valley beneath Bern is straight and oriented towards the NNW, with valley flanks more than 20 steep. The valley bottom has an irregular undulating profile along the thalweg, with differences between sills and hollows higher than 50–100 m over a reach of 4 kilometres length. Approximately 500 m high bedrock highlands flank the valley network. The highlands are dissected by up to 80 m-deep and 500 m-broad hanging valleys that currently drain away from the axis of the main valley. We interpret the valleys beneath the city of Bern to be a tunnel valley network which originated from subglacial erosion by melt water. The highland valleys served as proglacial meltwater paths and are hanging with respect to the trunk system, indicating that these incipient highland systems as well as the main gorge beneath Bern formed by glacial melt water under pressure. SIMULATING HOLOCENE SHIFTS IN EUROPEAN TREE DISTRIBUTION WITH DYNAMIC VEGETATION MODELS
SPECIES
Marie Dury. University of Liège, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Pollen and macro-fossil data collected from various localities in Europe provide the opportunity to reconstruct the speed and the routes of the post-glacial spread of European tree species. Moving from a limited number of refugia at the end of the glacial period, tree species have progressively re-colonized the continent through the Holocene at seemingly species-specific migration rates. However, the relative roles of climatic fluctuations, dispersal capacities of individual species, and interspecific competition in controlling these rates remains controversial. Here, we investigate these different aspects with two dynamic vegetation models (DVM), LPJ-GUESS and CARAIB. Transient runs of both models were performed over the Holocene, using HadCM3 GCM-reconstructed climate. Large-scale species migration at 0.5 0.5 is represented in these models using migration rates derived from a small-scale cellular automaton, CATS. Individual tree species migration rates were pre-calculated with CATS every 1000 years over each grid cell used by the DVMs in the climatic conditions reconstructed by the GCM. In the DVMs, these migration speeds were influenced by the response to competition from other species. The DVMs were used to study the migration of one species, from its 10 kyr BP refugia, within a landscape defined by a set of other species for which no dispersal limitations are assumed. Here, we illustrate the results obtained for three wind-dispersed tree species: Abies alba, Picea abies, Fagus sylvatica and compare them to their past distributions reconstructed from pollen and macro-fossil data. THE IMPACT OF LATE-HOLOCENE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN MOUNTAINOUS BÜGDÜZ RIVER SYSTEM, SOUTHWEST TURKEY Bert Dusar. K.U.Leuven, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Abstracts / Quaternary International 279-280 (2012) 121–232
127
The archaeological record in the territory of Sagalassos along with ample environmental proxy data has clearly indicated several periods of differing pressure on the physical landscape in the 260 km2 Bügdüz river catchment. These environmental changes are reflected in both colluvial and alluvial deposits, from which over 200 cores and 155 radiocarbon dates were retrieved. This dataset enabled quantification of sediment dynamics for the main historical periods. Additionally, it gives insight in the changing sediment fluxes through time, which could be linked with the main geomorphic driving forces (climate, vegetation, land-use change). Moreover, a modelling approach, validated by the field data, added to the identification of the relative impact of the driving forces on the Bügdüz river system. Results show that land-use changes related to the initial occupation of small catchments caused a sudden response in valley sedimentation. Downstream the Bügdüz river system, sediment archives do not reflect environmental change as directly, as time lags and system internal response become more pronounced. Furthermore, for periods subsequent to the initial major anthropogenic impact, increased topsoil stone content causes erosion rates to be significantly lower, hence not only reflecting the magnitude of environmental change. Therefore, sedimentation rates in the Bügdüz river catchment show a distinct peak during the Roman period, with lower rates for more recent periods with arguably equal pressure on the environment.
differentiating between small scale colluvial sedimentation phases and larger scale alluvial deposition periods. Using the available chronological information, cumulative probability functions (CPFs) were compiled, taking variations in the radiocarbon calibration curve into account by dividing by a CPF from equally spaced ages. From these CPFs periods of activity could be derived, and the CPFs from subsets enabled the identification of periods of enhanced colluvial and alluvial deposition. Results show that colluvial sedimentation started well before Roman times in small upland catchments, although there is some variability between the various sites. In the larger scale catchment, coarse sediment deposition was largely restricted to the same period in the 1st millennium BCE, while valley wide overbank deposits generally date to the Late Roman period. During the last millennium, sedimentation is more restricted to the downstream valley, as plausibly reworking of older deposits is the main process, but no sediment activity in the upland catchments can be traced.
MODELING EROSION AND SEDIMENT TRANSPORT SINCE THE ONSET OF AGRICULTURE FOR TWO CATCHMENTS IN CONTRASTING ENVIRONMENTS
The influence of Late Pleistocene climatic changes on early Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) living in Southern Africa is unclear. We examine the changes in shellfish at Blombos Cave and Klasies River and mammal prey spectra at a number of Middle Stone Age sites in South Africa to determine how the changing climate influenced subsistence strategies during the last glacial. We focus on the impact of the first pleniglacial, MIS 4. During this stage global temperatures dropped significantly. In South Africa this may have been accompanied by increased aridity. We examined both the shellfish and mammal faunal spectra for climatic indicators. The shellfish spectra suggest that a slight cooling trend may be visible in the Still Bay assemblages from Blombos Cave. The mammal assemblages suggest that no dramatic climatic changes are reflected at the sites. We have looked at the diet breadth reflected at the sites in order to evaluate whether populations were broadening the diet as global temperatures decreased. This could signal resource stress driving people to exploit marginal resources that they would not have exploited otherwise. The shellfish spectra of Blombos show a shift in prey choice, yet not a broadening of the diet. The diet breadth at Klasies River does not show a significant broadening of the diet either. Interestingly, the mammal assemblages at a number of sites appear to reflect a slight narrowing of the diet, suggesting that AMH living in South Africa did not experience increased resource stress during MIS 4.
Bert Dusar. K.U.Leuven, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Soil erosion and sedimentation rates are frequently linked to human impact, both in the Belgian loess belt and in the Mediterranean Taurus mountain ecosystem in southwest Turkey. However, the soil cover differs strongly between both regions: deep loess soils marked by only minor erodibility variations in the loess belt, versus shallow, stony soils with bedrock at limited depth in the Taurus. Environmental change and human impact on the landscape are well documented in both regions from archaeological findings and land use reconstructions based on pollen diagrams, supplemented by historical map study for the Belgian loess belt. Also pollen-based climate reconstructions are available, aside from the well-known historical global climate patterns. To compare both study area's response to historical environmental change, an adaptable soil erodibility factor was added to the existing Watem/Sedem model, which was used to estimate sediment fluxes within two small catchments of about 10 km2. From both catchments detailed sediment archives were available to calibrate the model. As soil properties in the Belgian loess belt are fairly homogeneous throughout the profile, variations in erosion rates are mainly due to environmental change, with human impact playing a major role. Even the removal of large amounts of topsoil and the surfacing of calcareous loess does not alter the erosion potential considerably. In contrast, the shallow soils of the Mediterranean Taurus are marked by increasing stone content with depth and mostly bedrock at shallow depth. Both control erosion potential to a large extent, as once the topmost soil layers are removed, increased topsoil stone content largely reduces soil erodibility. Moreover, bedrock outcrops account for a large area within the catchment and will yield no sediment at all. ESTABLISHMENT OF A RADIOCARBON DATABASE FOR IDENTIFYING THE CHRONOLOGY OF SEDIMENT DYNAMICS IN SW TURKEY Bert Dusar. K.U.Leuven, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Twenty years of geomorphologic research in the territory of the classical city of Sagalassos (Taurus Mountains, SW Turkey) has yielded a large amount of palaeoenvironmental information, and chronological information has accumulated to a dataset of 155 radiocarbon dates from various environmental settings. This dataset was divided into subsets following the interpretation of the dated archives, so as to enable
A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER: THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATIC CHANGES IN MIDDLE STONE AGE FORAGING BEHAVIOUR IN SOUTH AFRICA Gerrit Dusseldorp. University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa E-mail address: [email protected]
ADNA TYPING OF LEPROSY AND TUBERCULOSIS CASES IN MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA Christos Economou. Stockholm University, Sweden E-mail address: [email protected]
Leprosy and Tuberculosis have been two of the most referred to diseases of the past, influencing societies and history from the ancient to medieval world and beyond. Both pathogenies have a tendency to leave characteristic lesions on skeletal remains that can be useful to archaeologists that research on palaeopathology. The fact that these lesions are not always present though and that similar deformities can be caused by different agents, makes the use of molecular analysis that targets the bacterial DNA a useful tool that can aid this field of research. In this project we analyzed 10 human skeletons that were excavated from Sigtuna (Sweden), dated to Medieval times, for the presence of genomic sequences specific to the causative agents of Leprosy and Tuberculosis. This study adds to previous macroscopic analysis of the skeletons made by the osteoarchaeologists of the Department, so that the efficiency of both methods could be assessed. In addition, where positive results were obtained, a further aDNA analysis, using SNPs, was performed on the bacterial sequences so that the particular species and/or strains of each case could be inferred and thus add to the studies on the spread and evolution of these microbes.