Pavel Kalinin

Determining the source of naturally occurring materials employed to make cultural-heritage artifacts
is crucial for reconstructing changes over time in the development of human populations, as well as the
impact of the environment on social and economic models of prehistoric societies. The aim of this paper is
to perform a generalized analysis of archaeological items from Bronze Age sites in the Lower Don region and
Kalmykia, which can be correlated with the mineral resources of the Yergeni deposits. The characteristics of
main local rocks are described and their use by the steppe population of the Volga–Don region as reflected
in economic strategies and cultural traditions of the third millennium BC is assessed. It is found that in the
conditions of scarce steppe resources the alluvial deposits of the Yergeni series played a major part in the
development of economic strategies by the population that inhabited the Volga–Don region in the Bronze
Age and also in subsequent periods, including the Middle Ages. Access to vital resources such as rocks and
water made the steppes attractive for newcomers and determined the subsequent historical trajectory of this
region which thereafter became a sought-after-place to move to for many nomadic populations and peoples

We assessed biomass variability and uptake of major and trace elements in different plant families of steppe landscapes under conditions of the geochemical properties of soils and the climatic parameters variability. The data obtained will contribute to a better understanding of the geochemical function of plants in steppes, which is crucial for predicting the response of landscapes to climate change. Plant and soil samples were taken in different types of dry steppes (southeast of Russia) along a climatic gradient. In the obtained samples, the contents of Ca, K, Al, S, Mg, P, Cl, Fe, Ti, Zn, Mn, Cr, Sr, Ba and Rb were determined. Soil grain size, pH, carbonates (CaCO3) and soil organic carbon (SOC) were determined. Increased mean annual precipitation and decreased temperatures contributed to the predominance of graminoid species, thus facilitating the accumulation of the studied major and trace elements in the upper soil horizons. Climate desiccation promoted the growth of wormwood...

The concentration of main organic and inorganic pollutants (heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, radionuclides) in surface waters and in water-soil solutions was analysed on three keysites within the permafrost zone: Tazovsky Peninsula (North-West Siberia), Kolyma Lowland (North Yakutia) and adjacent to Yakutsk (Central Yakutia). In the majority of sampling points that are not directly impacted by human activity, the pollutants accumulate in the uppermost organogenic and organo-mineral horizons of natural soils. At the human-affected keysites the major pollutants may accumulate not only in the superficial horizons of the disturbed soils due to the surface runoff but also in the central parts of the profile, in the material buried by cryogenic, solifluction or fluvial processes and in some cases – in the suprapermafrost horizons and in the upper layer of permafrost transported via suprapermafrost water runoff.

A 700 km long soil transect in the southern Russian plain was studied. The difference in the average annual precipitation within the transect was 240 mm/year, and the average annual temperature was 3 °C. The objective of this study was to understand the behaviour of chemical elements and features of chemical weathering in semi-arid soils that developed on loesses and loess-like sediments. It was found that the semi-arid soils of the Russian plain are characterized by a low intensity of present chemical weathering. In an alkaline environment with a low amount of precipitation, the rate and direction of silicate weathering are determined not by the climate, but by the geochemical environment of the soil formation, which had already taken shape by the beginning of the Holocene. The alkaline oxidative environment hinders the hydrolysis and prevents the migration of chemical elements in ionic form. As a result, the removal of chemical elements from primary silicate minerals to soil solut...

A 700 km long soil transect in the southern Russian plain was studied. The difference in the average annual precipitation within the transect was 240 mm/year, and the average annual temperature was 3 • C. The objective of this study was to understand the behaviour of chemical elements and features of chemical weathering in semiarid soils that developed on loesses and loess-like sediments. It was found that the semi-arid soils of the Russian plain are characterized by a low intensity of present chemical weathering. In an alkaline environment with a low amount of precipitation, the rate and direction of silicate weathering are determined not by the climate, but by the geochemical environment of the soil formation, which had already taken shape by the beginning of the Holocene. The alkaline oxidative environment hinders the hydrolysis and prevents the migration of chemical elements in ionic form. As a result, the removal of chemical elements from primary silicate minerals to soil solutions is not a determining process for vertical geochemical migration. The degree of weathering of present soils is mostly inherited from the parent materials of the Quaternary. Conditions for acid hydrolysis occur only in the upper horizons during increased biochemical activity and lower pH values. However, soil processes (carbonatization, salinization, illitization, and loessivage) make the behaviour of alkali (Na 2 O, K 2 O) and alkalineearth (MgO, CaO, Sr) metals more complex, involving them in recycling in the upper soil horizons, and hinder the quantitative characterization of weathering of silicate minerals. Therefore, the use of CIA geochemical indicator as a quantitative measure of chemical weathering for semiarid soils formed in the Holocene becomes problematic. This study will improve the understanding of the geochemical processes that took place in modern soils in semi-arid regions and clarify the possibility of using geochemical weathering ratios in saline sediments.

The steppe and semidesert landscapes of the Republic of Kalmykia and Rostov oblast (a total of 12) in various ecological and geochemical conditions (precipitation, temperature, soil salinization, position in meso and macro relief, etc.) have been studied. Samples of vegetation and soil have been taken at the selected sites, and the contents of P are measured by the X-ray fluorescent method. Organic carbon (C org), calcium carbonate (CaCO 3), pH, and granu-lometric composition are additionally determined in soil. To estimate the absorption and biogenic accumulation of chemical elements by vegetation, the coefficient of biological uptake (CBU) is calculated. To interpret and visualize the data, the nonmetric multidimensional scaling method is used. It is revealed that when environmental conditions vary the content of chemical elements in the studied plants decreases as following: Sa > Al > Fe > K > S > P > Mg > Ti > Mn > Sr > Ba > Zn > Ni. The highest contents of Al, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ti, Ba, Zn, and Sr are shown for plants of the genus Poaceae Barnhart, and the highest contents of Ca, K, P, and S are shown for plants of the genus Artemisia L. According to the cumulative characteristics, concentrations of the studied elements in vegetation are significantly different from each other in aboveground parts of cereals , aboveground and underground parts of wormwoods, and underground parts of cereals. For the studied plant species, the coefficient of biological uptake of chemical elements >1 was revealed for S

Ochre is a natural pigment of yellow or red color, mainly consisting of iron minerals. Along with determining the origin of mineral dyes, one of the main problems of studying natural pigments in archaeology is identifying the origin of the so-called "red" ochre, made on the basis of hematite. Hematite is a widespread mineral found everywhere. However, it can be obtained by pyroprocessing goethite, which is the main component of the "yellow" ochre. To test the hypothesis of the red ochre production through the pyroprocessing of iron oxides, 3 samples of ochre from the burials of the Bronze Age in the Republic of Adygea and the Krasnodar area have been studied. To identify the traces of thermal treatment of the raw ochre, we've carried out complex analysis, including the X-ray diffractometry, element analysis, infrared spectroscopy and microstructure analysis. The traces of the pyroprocessing have been revealed in the ochre sample from the burial of the Early Bronze Age near the Kazanskaya settlement. The form and size of the hematite crystals in the burial of the Ladozhskaya settlement indicate the unperformed heat treatment and the endogenous origin. The sample from the Novosvobodnaya village shows the traces of pyroprocessing, but the pigment's microstructure indicates the sedimentary origin of the iron minerals from which it is composed. It's been found that the color of pigments does not depend on the percentage of iron in the raw material sample. The presence and the ratio of hematite and goethite in the pigment, as well as the composition of other minerals in the final product are the most significant discoveries. P.I. Kalinin has carried out the complex analysis of pigment properties, data interpretation, literature review and paper writing; V.A. Trifonov has determined the archaeological context, interpreted the data, edited paper and approved the final version; N.I. Shishlina has provided samples for analysis, interpreted the data, made fundamental editiond to the paper; A.O. Alekseev has interpreted the mineralogical analysis and made certain amendments.

The chemical composition of palaeosols of archeological monuments was studied. The possibility of the using different geochemical ratios was considered for reconstruction of the natural environment and ancient conditions of soil formation. The researches different ages palaeosols with use geochemical ratios was revealed cyclic changes of soils are connected with ancient dynamics of the climate.

The changes in the material composition of the buried soils and loesses in relation to the dynamics
of the climate and sediment accumulation were studied for revealing the pedogenetic features and assessing
the natural conditions in the steppe zone of the southern Russian Plain. A comparative analysis of the chem
ical compositions of the differentaged Pleistocene loess–soil complexes (the Otkaznoe, PortKaton, and
Shabel’skoe profiles) on the Terek–Kuma Plain and the Azov–Kuban’ Lowland was performed. An increase
in the concentrations of Fe and Mn, which are intensively involved in the biological cycle, and Rb, which is
accumulated due to the activation of weathering processes, was observed in the paleosols that developed in
interglacial periods of activation of pedogenesis. Increased coefficients of weathering (chemical index of
alteration (CIA)) = [Al/(Al + Ca + Na + K)] 100, Al/(Al + Ca + Na + Mg), Rb/Sr, and Mn/Sr), leaching
(Ba/Sr), and biological activity and bioproductivity (Mn/Fe, Mn/Al) were also noted for the paleosol hori
zons as compared with the loess horizons. It is argued that geochemical coefficients can be used as an efficient
tool in the soil and paleogeographic studies aimed at the reconstruction and refinement of the schemes of
changes in the bioclimatic conditions during the Pleistocene.

The modern forest soils and buried Holocene paleosoils in the vicinity of Novosvobodnaya (former Tsarskay), republic of Adygea, Russia, N-W Caucasus, have been studied. It was found that the buried soil under the Early Bronze Age mounds (ca. 3300-2900 BC) represents the black soil (Voronic Chernozem Pachic) with a different degree of leaching, and the forest-steppe landscape prevailed  in the region during that time. The gradual annual increase of precipitation (from 600-700 to 800 mm per year) had led to the expansion of forest to the north of the foothills and evolving the black soil (Voronic Chernozem Pachic) into the grey forest soil with the second humus horizon. Thus, as a result of climate changes, the borderline between the steppe and forest-steppe landscapes shifted toward the North up to 50-100 km.