文化遗址区古土壤特性及古环境研究进展

分析古土壤性质是获取古环境信息的重要手段,通过研究文化遗址区古土壤性质来反映古环境和古人类活动日益成为国内外研究的热点。系统地总结了近年来国内外文化遗址区古土壤的土壤粒度、土壤微形态、土壤元素、土壤磁化率、多环芳烃、动植物遗存等在考古应用方面的研究进展,结果表明上述研究方法有效地反映古环境信息和古人类活动。提出了应借鉴相关研究指标,进一步加强土壤学与考古学的结合,在此基础上丰富文化遗址区古土壤研究方法,加强对文化遗址区土壤的分类研究,逐步建立考古土壤学这一新的学科分支。

Review of paleosol and palaeoenvironment in ancient culture sites

To analysis ancient soil properties is an important means to obtain paleoenvironmental information. To restore ancient environment and ancient human activities by interpreting the ancient soil information has become a hotspot for research both at home and abroad. This paper summarized the progress of domestic and overseas researches on particle size of soil grain, soil micromorphology, soil element, soil magnetic susceptibility, PAHs and remains of biology of paleosol in recent years.According to these researches, particle size of soil grain can reflect the cause of soil deposit, hydrodynamic condition, climatic and agricultural production conditions in cultural site. Pedogenic environment, land use conditions, farming pattern and human disturbance can be speculated by soil micromorphology. Different soil elements reflect different palaeoenvironment, Ca, P, Mg are indications of ancient human living area and household refuse, Fe, Ca, Sr, Zn are indications of cookhouse, Hg, Cu, Pb and Br are indications of manufacturing area. All of these are closely linked with ancient human activities, besides, Ca, Mg, Sr are in closely contact with farming area. Soil magnetic susceptibility reflects stratigraphic age, the ancient climate conditions and ancient human activity. The age of vegetations, major crops, natural environment, climate variation and the changes of ancient human environment can be inferred by remains of plants include macroremains, pollen and spores and phytolith. PHAs reflect the flame cultivation. Animal remains such as teeth and bones of animals, they infer the animal species, animal producing area, natural environment and profession model. All these researches have made extraordinary outstanding contributions on restoring palaeoenvironment and ancient human activities, however, a lack of combination of different subjects and exploration of new methods still hinders the way of further study. Therefore, what needs to be done in the future are to enhance the combination of soil science and archaeology, to improve the theories of studying paleosol in ancient culture sites. An integrated diagnosis index for paleosol in ancient culture sites needs to be established, methods on analyzing process-response relationship between soil process and resultant soil property need to be improved, and also, studies on soil classification in ancient culture sites need to be enriched. At last, for going a step further, to set up a new branch of soil science called archaeological soil science step by step.