Estimation of intensity of settlement activities in the Early Medieval Hillfort Královice according to accumulation of anthropogenic elements in the soil

B.Sc. Ramgopal Biswas

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Ancient settlement activities relate to accumulation of anthropogenic elements which can persist in the soil for millennia. There are many early medieval strongholds in Czech Republic, but accumulation of anthropogenic elements has never been studied on them. The aim of this thesis was to study accumulation of anthropogenic elements in soils in Stronghold Královice near Prague which existed from 10th to 13th century AD. I asked following research questions: 1) Is 300 years of settlement activities enough long period for the development of a strong chemical signature in soils in the stronghold? 2) Were there any differences in settlement activities in different areas of the stronghold? 3) Are the chemical signatures in the stronghold different from the signatures recorded in deserted medieval villages in the Czech Republic? 4) What can the level of enrichment of soils by anthropogenic elements tell us about human population density? I concluded that 1) 300 years of human settlement activities were enough long period to create strong chemical signature of anthropogenic soils in the former stronghold. 2) Intensity of chemical signature was different for Acropolis and Bailey indicating that Bailey was substantially less settled than Acropolis. 3) Chemical signatures recorded in the stronghold was much stronger than in the case of deserted medieval villages. This clearly indicate much intensive settlement activities in this stronghold in comparison to deserted villages. 4) Strongholds were thus areas with extraordinary settlement activities and with high density of humans. How many people lived in the stronghold I was not able to identify as it is unknown how much sediments were eroded and precisely to quantify the amount of accumulated phosphorus.

Keywords

Phosphorus, Calcium, Zinc, Copper, Geochemistry, pXRF, Human settlement, Soil Chemistry, Medieval village

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 30. 6. 2020

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: prof. RNDr. Michal Hejcman, Ph.D. Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Master programme / field:
Engineering Ecology / Nature Conservation