Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 36 (4) 2008

Annotation:  Environmental Changes in the Mongolian Altai during the Holocene New Data on Radiocarbon Chronology of Neolithic Ceramics from the Volga-Kama Region 1929 Year Tree-Ring Chronology for the Altai-Sayan Region (Western Tuva) Early Urilsky Culture Assemblage from Bukinsky Kluch, Bureya River Representations of Warriors on Early Medieval Turkic Bronze Plaques from Eastern Central Asia New Categories of Wooden Artifacts of the Mid 1st Millennium AD from the site of Vis II (Vychegda Ba The Han Chariot from Noin Ula Mound 20 (Mongolia) Defense Constructions of Fort Umrevinsky (Based on 2002–2004 Archaeological Excavations) Petroglyph Sites of Kazakhstan and Western Central Asia as Part of the Archaeological Landscape: Ne Zoomorphic Images in Eastern Slavic Embroidery of Southwestern Siberia New Ethnic Holidays in the Sayan-Altai The Origin of the Early Nomadic Populations of Tuva: Craniometrical Evidence The “Mediterraneans” of Southern Siberia and Kazakhstan, Indo-European Migrations, and the Origin of Human Humerus from Khoroshevsky Island: History and Context   

Environmental Changes in the Mongolian Altai during the Holocene

N.A. Rudaya, P.E. Tarasov, N.I. Dorofeyuk, I.A. Kalugin, A.A. Andreev, B. Diekmann, and A.V. Daryin.

Based on palynological and diatom analyses of the sediment core from Lake Hoton Nuur situated at 2083 m asl, environmental changes in the Mongolian Altai during the Holocene are described. The results suggest that the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (11.5–10.7 ka) climate of that area was cold and arid, and plant associations were of a steppe type. The Middle Holocene (9.3–6.5 ka) climate was warm and humid, resulting in the expansion of forests. After 6.5 ka, the climate became increasingly continental, and forests were largely replaced by tundra and steppe landscapes. Over the last 3000 years, the forests disappeared and the steppes expanded. The causes were likely not only climatic, but also anthropogenic.