The environmental and cultural contexts of the late Iron Age and medieval settlement in the Mazurian Lake District, NE Poland: combined palaeobotanical and archaeological data

Abstract

Pollen analysis of sediments from three lakes and analysis of plant macroremains including charcoal from archaeological sites in the Mazurian Lake District provide new data for the reconstruction of vegetation changes related to human activity between the 1st and 13th century AD. At that time settlements of the Bogaczewo culture (from the turn of the 1st century AD to the first part of the 5th century AD), the Olsztyn Group (second part of the 5th century AD to the 7th or beginning of the 8th century AD), and the Prussian Galinditae tribes (8th/9th–13th century AD) developed. The most intensive woodland clearing occurred between the 1st and 6th/7th century AD. Presence of Cerealia-type, Secale cereale and Cannabis-type pollen, as well as macroremains of Hordeum vulgare, S. cereale, Triticum spelta, T. cf. monococcum, T. cf. dicoccum, Avena sp. and Panicum miliaceum documented local agriculture. High Betula representation synchronous with microcharcoal occurrence suggests shifting agriculture. After forest regeneration between c. AD 650 and 1100, the area was strongly deforested due to the early medieval occupation by Prussian tribes. The archaeobotanical examination of samples taken in a cemetery and a large settlement of the Roman Iron Age revealed strong differences in the taxonomic composition of the fossil plant remains. An absolute dominance of birch charcoal in the samples from the cemetery indicates its selective use for funeral pyre construction. There is a difference between cereals found in both contexts: numerous grains of Triticum have been found in the cemetery, while in the settlement crops were represented mostly by Secale and Hordeum. Grass tubers, belonging probably to Phleum pratense, are among the particularly interesting plant remains found in the cemetery.