Ekaterina G. Ershova*, Nikolay A. Krenke**
* Lomonosov Moscow State University (eershova@rambler.ru)
** Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow (nkrenke@mail.ru)

Keywords: old Smolensk, Sobornaya Gora, palinology, reclamation of territory.

Excavation at Sobornaya Gora (Cathedral Mound) in the city of Smolensk revealed a series of medieval natural and anthropogenous deposits containing an amount of pollen and spores sufficient for analysis. Pollen analysis enabled us to reconstruct several phases of reclamation of the territory of old Smolensk in general outline. The study made it apparent that as early as by the 8th century AD the primeval coniferous-large-leaved forests had been brushed and substituted by secondary birch groves. Parts of the brushed coniferous forests were restored in the 8th–10th centuries while the rest were cut down to produce cultivated surfaces. The vegetation of the Sobornaya Gora slopes was a mosaic of plant associations reflecting different phases of overgrowing of fields and clearings. The amount of forest elements in landscapes had been gradually reducing in the 10th–11th centuries and by the 13th century forests in the vicinity of Sobornaya Gora were completely substituted by fields, pastures and ruderal associations, i.e. weeds.