Preview

PDF, German Download (1MB) | Terms of use

Abstract

In the context of the present study, for the first time, a comprehensive and above all, a systematic environmental analysis of sites from the Early Iron Age to the Slavic Early Middle Ages was applied in the Oder region. A site catchment analysis of the topographical setting, the soil and broader parameters was conducted as a GIS examination, in which the spatial data information in a probable operating radius around the respective settlements of the individual periods was collected and evaluated statistically. In this way, statistically significant climate proxies on the relative humidity index and temperature pattern of the paleoclimate could be demonstrated. In addition, the deciding location factors of the soil and the geoecological environment of the settlement as well as distortionary anthropogenic and natural superimpositions were discussed. The ecological indicator values were rearranged into concise categories in a transformation process in consideration of their usability and informative value for matters concerning prehistoric, agronomically orientated cultures and checked for climate signals. In order to guarantee traceability and the ability to clearly document results, more complex, analytically descriptive, stochastic processes were dispensed with. Therefore, the identified climate signals do not represent absolute data, but rather indirect, relative data, which permit comparative statements concerning the previous and subsequent level. Finally, with the use of comparative climate research, palynology, dendrochronology, the status of glaciers, river levels and models for the calculation of the paleotemperature, the climate signals that were produced in the context of the GIS environmental analysis could be verified. In this way, the probability and conciseness of the environmental analysis developed here and its particularly detailed chronological value were substantiated. Subsequent geoarchaeological and cultural-historical results concerning settlement and the environmental conditions of the Oder region could be clarified.