Vegetation history of Eastern Ladoga region (Russia) during the Holocene based on pollen study of Piskarskoe Lake sediment core

Abstract

The Onega-Ladoga isthmus is a relatively poorly studied part of the Northwestern Russia in terms of palaeo palynology. However, this area is a very important for understanding of human colonization of the Karelia Region. In addition, archaeological sites, beginning from the end of the Paleolithic, have been discovered here. This allows us to trace the human impact on the environment for the past 10,000 years. It found that the vegetation around of Lake Piskarskoe several times changed from cold-loving to warm-loving, and from hygrophytic to mesophytic. A Piskarskoe wetland began to form as a bog at the end of the Atlantic period while the maximum swamping rates happened in the Subatlantic period. As the lake is placed in a hard-reached area, there were not any anthropogenic indicators in spectra. This requires a detailed multimethod study of the core to define indicators of anthropogenic impact.