In addition, both soils (Retisols) show similar morphology and key analytical features indicating close similarity of the landscapes in the study area that existed in the Early Iron Age and those that are present nowadays. The buried soil has a complete profile that was influenced by human activity prior to the burial and subjected to diagenesis after the burial. Both soils formed on similar surfaces with the same lithology (mantle loam underlain by calcareous loess), at the same elevation, and in close proximity to each other. The study of microbial genes, which was performed in the studied soils for the first time, showed that both content and taxonomic structure of soil microbial communities, are promising paleoclimatic proxies as well as a record of diagenetic changes in buried soils.Ībstract = "Landscape response to the Late Holocene climatic cycles was studied on the base of detailed morphological, analytical and micro-biomorphic research of a soil buried under fortification earth wall of the Early Iron Age (around 2000 yr. The features of the diagnostic horizons of the studied Retisols are indicators of stability in the studied time/space range. Landscape stability at the southern fringe of the forest zone makes it possible to establish the northern limit of the wide belt, which stretches out from dry steppe to northern forest-steppe, where landscape shifts influenced by the Late Holocene climatic cycles occurred.
Micro-biomorphic assemblages (phytoliths, pollen, microbial genes) support this conclusion.
Landscape response to the Late Holocene climatic cycles was studied on the base of detailed morphological, analytical and micro-biomorphic research of a soil buried under fortification earth wall of the Early Iron Age (around 2000 yr.