Re: LBK and Bulgarian Early Neolithic crop and weed

Uwe Müller wrote: news:ehf7va$t9f$1@xxxxxxxxx
"Peter Alaca" schrieb
Uwe Müller wrote:
"Peter Alaca" wrote
Uwe Müller wrote:

[...]
The classical explanation for the hazel maximae sees the unusual
large number of hazel pollen produced as cause for their
overrepresantation, Peter mentioned it somewhere along the way.
But why would this only show up in the record during thos two
times, and not during the other millenia, when hazel flourished.

When the pollen record doesn't show Hazel pollen,
then of course there was no hazel pollen to show,
so how you can say Hazel flourished in periodes
without pollen?

But it does show hazel pollen,

Of course, I only was putting it very sharp.

only not in quantities surpassing the total count of tree pollen.

? Surpassing the total count is impossible.
In a pollen diagram counts are relative, so a
hazel peak of 40 in the tree/shrub part means
there are 60% other tree/shrub pollen at the
given depth (or time).

" Die Pollendiagramme sind Prozentwertdiagramme auf der Basis der
Baumpollensumme. ... Als Berechnugsgrundlage wurde, sofern nicht
anders gekennzeichnet, die Summe des Baumpollens gebildet, definiert
als Pollensumme sämtlicher Gehölze mit Ausnahme von Corylus [Hazel,
UM]. "

Wiebke Kirleis, Vegetationsgeschichtliche und archäobotanische
Untersuchungen
zur Landwirtschaft und Umwelt im Bereich der prähistorischen
Siedlungen bei Rullstorf, Ldkr. Lüneburg. Dissertation Göttingen
2002, p 12
or
http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/diss/2004/kirleis/kirleis.pdf

Thanks. I have that in my archive since last april,
and associated files show I was considering
posting a summary, but I never finished a translation.

Must have misunderstood that.

I don't understand why Hazel is not in the treepollen sum
(while Hedera Viscum and all Salix are) or in the shrub
pollen sum, but is regarded as a class of its own.
It makes interpretation much more complicated.

If 'normal methods' were employed, the hazel maximae would have
to be interpreted as sign of a radical change of vegetation, from
dense forests to open forests with hazel being the major
constituent.

You only can say that hazel pollen is the major
constituent, not that the forests consists mainly
of Hazel. And the curve for Hazel was (in the tree
pollen) more or less mirrored by other tree species
(Pine, Lime, Ash).

Hazel pollen summed up to more than the tree pollen in toto.
But not at all sites.

There are differences in pollen production, transport
and preservation, so the relation between the pollen
record and the local (or regional) vegetation is never 1:1.
That is a problem. I know that there are correction factors,
but I don't no if they are always used.
On of the problems is pollen with a short transport
range, therefore difficult to detect. Another is the
opposite, causing a background 'pollen rain'. But that
has the advantage that it is possible to recognise continent
wide changes in vegetation (and climate).

Yes, I do know the standard explanations.

I was not for your eyes only :-)

And I never had cause to think about, what they really mean.
But during the discussions nut-bearing trees have featured prominent
in several fields, so to speak.

So I started asking why.

And I found the hazel maximae. There may indeed be convincing
explanations for that, but I did not come across any. Too me it
looked as if anthropogenic causes might have been outside of
consideration, because "archaeologists have found out, pre-neolithic
men didn't do such things".

But could he have done it?

Who knows? Was there a need for them to do that?
And how about natural causes like climate and other
environmental factors, the normal adaptation of the
vegetation to that factors and the normal succession
of that vegetation?
(The simplyfied 'standard' dry succession is from
grassland to shrubland to forest)

I believe, the short time needed for the change, increase and
decrease, would be hard to explain by natural means only.

What do you mean by a short time?

P. 32, "Im jüngeren Boreal ..."
p 33, "Am Beginn des Atlantikum ..."

Is that short?

Do you know a pollen diagram for central Europe
we can use as a common reference here?

The profiles from Lower Saxony are often from poor sandy regions,
there are a number of bavarian profiles from the alpine foreland,
very good soils, and anything in between. And that's just Germany.
Firbas is well aged and lacks a secure dating.

That's why I can only guess.


Let's opens a debate on the reliability of pollen records. There are
instances where a pollen profile taken only 8 km away from an
excavated neolithic settlement, does not show any direct signs of
human impact, no deforestation, no cereals or ruderal species
(I'll provide references if anyone cares for a german language
dissertation).

Please do.

See above.

But an increase in charcoal is taken as evidence for
anthropogenic introduced change.

How much of the interpretation of a pollen profile rests on
archaeologists stating, there was, or was no, human activity?
If this plays a role in the interpretation, the pollen records
concerned may not be used to bolster archaeological theories
about human impact on the environment.

If the pollen record shows e.g. deforestation and an
increase of grassland, and at te same time the
appearance of grains and other human related species,
there is in my view no other interpretation possible.

No question here, but you named 4 indicators, are only 4 out of 4
convincing enough, or maybe 3 or 2?

A decrease in treepollen as such is no indication
of human impact.
Only pollen of cultivated plants and other plants
related to humans are real indicators.

Signs of deforestation often appear in the Late Bronze Age for the
first time, steppe vegetation or grassland has been attested for Late
Bronze age Berlin.
Grains first appear in the mesolithic in the Med, it is the 'food
production' thing, that makes grain important. And there are more
food sources than just grains.

Yes, but as long as it are no cultivars, or they are
not found in large amounds in storage or refuse pits,
they are not recognisable as such.

So if there are signs of deforestation (decrease in tree pollen), and
signs of large area fires (charcoal flitters being present in
pre-neolithic pollen diagrammes regularly), what makes botanists so
sure, that those are not signs of human activities?

Of course it is impossible to say on the basis of a
pollen profile that there were no humans in the area
or humans active in the vicinity.

Sorry, sloppy formulation on my part. There was no indicator of human
induced change of the natural vegetation from a Trichterbecher
settlement 8 km away attested for that time (early neolithic in that
area, middle neolithic further south). Interesting enough the area
lacks hazel pollen, the younger Boreal max is by 24 % of tree pollen,
references for areas with high and low hazel maximae are given. It
would be interesting to check the sites for mesolithic finds.

It is possible Hazel flourished without flowering
(coppicing prevents flowering), but it is not likely
that alone caused the widespread dip in the
Atlanticum.

And it would be hard to explain how and why man would coppice
Hazel in numbers big enough to influence a similar peak for the
Alleröd, and why this was not done any other time, except to end
the 2 maximae.

It is very unlikely man did this already at the end
of the Allerød.
Don't forget that the Allerød Hazel peak coincides
with a warm period.

Warm enough for grain?

Very likely, but there was no (detectable) grain,
or nobody was interested.

Or just warm enough for Hazel?
And warm enough everywhere, or just in some places?

I understand in central Europe Allerød temperatures
were more or less like todays.

Was the Lüneburg region, misfavoured by poor soils and a northerly
location, mesolithic because it was not suited for neolithization at
that time, because plants or animals adapted to local conditions took
2000 years longer to reach them, or because they would not be
interested in producing food?

The Lüneburg soil was/is too poor for the LBK-style of farming,
which was based on rich soils, so why would they be interested?

My hypothesis rested on mesolithics learning food production via the
nut bearing trees, and changing over to grain farming, when cultivars
adapted to local conditions became available.
But what about regions like the Lueneburg area, where hazel and oak
were scarce even before the neolithic?

Were they? Kirleis writes on page 17:

"Die PZ VI-1 zeichnet sich durch Ulmus-Werte unter
5 % und hohe Corylus-Werte aus. Die Hasel erfährt
somit ihre stärkste holozäne Ausbreitung zu Beginn
des Atlantikums, radiokarbon-datiert auf 7140 ± 55
BP, kal. 6007 (6056-5924) v. Chr. Corylus stockte
im Unterwuchs der Eichenmischwälder. Zudem sind
die Werte der Holzkohle-Flitter in diesem Abschnitt
sehr hoch. Dieses zeigt, daß häufiger natürliche
Waldbrände auftraten."

Pollenzone VI-1 is Middle Mesolithic (see Tab.1 on p 14)
The high Hazel value is shown in the diagram for Elbaer Moor
on page 19 as a peak of, lets say, 30% Corylus.
At the same time there is the same amount of Alnus (Alder)
pollen, c 15% Betula (Birch), 30-40% Pinus (Pine), 10-15%
Quercus (Oak) and low counts of other species.
Skip the Alnus because that is a wetland species and the
others are not (Birch in part is)
Lets say that means 70% 'dry' forestpollen, not counting Hazel.
This does not mean that 70% of the vegetation was dry forest!
It can be seen that in the early Mesoliticum (PZ V) Pine is
replaced by (mainly) Oak and Hazel (and Alnus?), but in
PZ VI-1 there still is a lot of Pinus.
From then on the main components seem to be Pine/Birch and
Alder, pointing to a combination of poor (sandy) soils and wetland,
with Oak/Hazel in between.
And since we see no real increase in grasland (Poacaeae)
and heather (Calluna) until the Iron Age (PZ IX), every increase
in arboreal pollen (e.g. Oak) very likely means a real increase
in treecover. And Pine produces much more pollen than Oak,
so there was more oak then it seems.
I see no reason to conclude that Oak and Hazel were scarse
or scarser in the Lüneburg area before the Neolithic (PZ VII).

The charcoal graph is intrigueing.

I referred to this before, but there are many diagrams in:
M. Ralska-Jasiewiczowa, D. Nalepka & T. Goslar (2003)
"Some problems of forest transformation at the transition
to the oligocratic/Homo sapiens phase of the Holocene
interglacial in northern lowlands of central Europe"
Veget Hist Archaeobot 12:233-247
http://tomcat.bf.jcu.cz/brychp01/Ralska-Nalepka-Goslar.pdf
[15 pp 1.9 Mb]
But they only go as far back as c 7000 BP (Late Mesolithic.
PZ VII?).


Could natural catastrophes have destroyed so much of the forests,
that Hazel would, for a short time, dominate the pollen record?
Shouldn't other pioneer plants show maximae at the same time,
grasses, bushes, birch?

Hazel isn't a pioneer like Birch. The seeds are much
too big for that. And when the forest is destroyed,
Hazel is destroyed with it, and when it survives, it
takes years (5-7) before it flowers (again).

And it is better not to think in terms of catastrophes
and destroying when talking about vegetation and
this kind of time spans. It are mainly responses to
climate changes, and during the Neolithic on a much
smaller scale to human influences.

I'm not fussy about words, I know about the lack of precision dating
for the extent of the hazel maximae, but I feel, neglecting possible
human influence before the neolithic just because popular theory says
so, could obscure what really happened.

Of course, but I just don't believe in the possibility of
people determining the vegetation development of an
entire continent during the Mesolithic, when natural
and more logical explanations are available.
Maybe early mesolithic man planted hazelnuts and
maybe his descendants destroyed them again, but
was that enough to change the face of the earth?


If otoh the hazel pollen max indicate an increase in absolute
numbers, the question is valid, if there is a biogenic explanation
for this explosive increase or if man meddled mightily.

...............................
For a table with geological classification, dating, climate and
vegetation for Central Europe,
see e.g. http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhdfrvdp/vdpost.htm
Wikipedia gives roughly the same, but with the pollen zones
and Northern European archaeological periods added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen_zone
But better to replace their 'Geological stage' Devensian with
Late Pleistocene, and Flandrian with 'Holocene'.
'Devensian' is the last glaciation, elswhere known as Weichsel,
Wurm, Midlandian or Wisconsin glaciation, and Flandrian is
British for Pleistocene.

Here is a handy program to calibrate uncalibrated c14 dates:
Cologne Radiocarbon Calibration Programme (CalPal)
http://www.calpal-online.de/


--
p.a.

.

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