Despite the abundance of charcoal material entrapped in soils, they remain relatively less studied pyrogenic archives in comparison to the sedimentary paleofire records (e.g., lacustrine and peat deposits), and that is especially the case in most of Russia’s territory. We report here on the deep soil archives of the Holocene forest fires from the Pinega District of the Arkhangelsk region (64.747° N, 43.387° E). Series of buried soil profiles separated by charcoal layers and clusters were revealed in specific geomorphological traps represented by the active and paleokarst subsidence sinkholes on sulfate rocks overlaid by glacial and fluvial deposits. We combine the study of soil morphology and stratigraphy with a set of radiocarbon data on charcoal and soil organic matter, as well as the anthracomass analysis, to extract a set of paleoenvironmental data. A total of 45 radiocarbon dates were obtained for the macrocharcoal material and the soil organic matter. The maximum temporal “depth” of archives estimated from the radiocarbon dating of macrocharcoal reached 10,260 ± 35 cal yr BP. Soil formation with Podzols established at the inter-pyrogenic stages repeatedly reproduced within the period of ten thousand years, while the dominant tree species was Pinus sp. According to the macrocharcoal data, the intervals between fires have shortened in the last thousand years. Dendrochronological estimates suggest the occurrence of fires in almost every decade of the 20th and early 21st centuries. This is the first study of the millennia-scale soil record of forest fires in this particular region of Russia.

Late Holocene landscape evolution at the southern frontier of the forest belt of European Russia is studied based on detailed morphological, analytical and microbiomorphic research of a soil chronosequence that included a surface soil and a soil buried under the Bronze Age kurgan. Both soils (Folic Eutric Cambisols) are formed on similar geomorphic surfaces in the same parent material and in close proximity to each other. The soil morphology and the key analytical features are controlled by low-reactive parent material and imply close similarity of the present landscapes and those of the Bronze age. At the same time the morphological features show that the buried soil was influenced by the phase of weak aridization, which led to the formation of a dark mull humus horizon. Microbiomorphic assemblages (phytoliths, pollen) support the earlier conclusion that the soils of the study area had being developed mostly under forest vegetation.

The increasing number of fires leads to the constant increase of the proportion of pyrogenic soils in Russia. The objective of this study is to determine t

The paper presents the results of a study of samples from the “pink horizon” in sediments of the Onega Ice Lake. A large amount of iron in this horizon is shown, their shapes and sizes are determined. The presence of microbial mats and biofilms in this layer was revealed, and a conclusion was made about the rate of accumulation of varyed clays.

The Novo-Ufimskii burial ground is one of the largest sites of the Southern Urals, located in the southern part of Ufa, in territorial terms, correlated with the Kara-Abyz culture of the Early Iron Age. Located in the historical part of the city of Ufa, the Novo-Ufimskii burial ground was allocated by R.B. Akhmerov on the territory of the construction of Bashkir State University buildings in 1952-1956. The site of the Novo-Ufimskii burial ground has repeatedly been subjected to destructive anthropogenic impacts since the second half of the 19th century, from the period of active development in the southern part of Ufa. However, a systematic investigation of the territory of the site with the involvement of a wide range of natural science methods has not been carried out. Earlier archaeological studies of the Novo-Ufa burial ground were most often associated with the part of the monument destroyed by construction. Some of the burials discovered during the reconstruction of the Dynamo stadium were investigated. The archaeological research carried out in 2018 set the task of widespread use of interdisciplinary, natural-scientific methods on the materials of 22 burials of the Novo-Ufimskii burial ground. During archaeological work in 2018, a feature was recorded in the burial tradition of the population who left the burial ground. Two-tiered burials were identified. The main focus of the study was bronze and paleosoil items from the Novo-Ufimskii burial ground.

In this paper, we present the results of a paleoanthracological analysis of the Lateglacial Kulikovo section (eastern Baltic, Kaliningrad region). This is proposed as a new methodological approach to studying the presence of woody taxa in Lateglacial vegetation. Woody vegetation is an important marker of environmental dynamics in post-glacial areas and one of the most important indicators of climate amelioration. Therefore, establishing the time of the appearance of woody vegetation during the Lateglacial period is essential. Paleoanthracological analysis revealed 22 macrocharcoal morphotypes, among which were the following indicators of woody (coniferous and deciduous) vegetation: wood, punky wood, needles, leaf stems, etc. The results indicate an almost continuous local presence of woody species in the study area since the Older Dryas, 14.0 ka. This conclusion is in good agreement with the available data on the presence of phytoliths of conifers and palynological data, indicating that from the end of the Older Dryas up to approximately 12.5 ka, the percentage of arboreal vegetation did not fall below 50% of terrestrial pollen, and over a significant part of the studied time interval it reached 70–80%. Paleoanthracological analysis can serve as both an independent method of studying the emergence of woody vegetation in a certain area and an important addition to the reconstruction of Lateglacial vegetation based on pollen data.