Paleosols of the Upper Palaeolithic sites in the East European Plain reflect the environmental fluctuations of centennial to millennial scale during MIS 3 and MIS 2

In the Eastern Europe there are very few studies of the terrestrial records which registered the contrasting short-term climate fluctuations during the last glacial period demonstrated by the Greenland ice core proxy. We argue that the paleosol-sedimentary sequences encountered at the Upper Palaeolithic archaeological sites within the central Russian Plain reflect such climatic fluctuations, the incipient paleosols being formed predominantly during the warm episodes corresponding to the Greenland Interstadials. Detailed research and dating of paleosols described in the sections of the archaeological sites of Kostenki and Divnogorie gave rise to the compound correlation scheme which covers the second half of MIS 3 and MIS 2. This scheme contains the levels of incipient paleosols correlative to the last 8 Greenland Interstadials. In case of the Zaraysk site the formation of the paleosol found there took place during the Greenland Stadial 2 and marks a warmer phase 18–21 cal ka BP within this cold interval. The obtained results show that the paleosols of the soil-sedimentary sequences of the Palaeolithic sites could provide a sensitive record of the climatic fluctuations of centennial to 1–2 millennia scale. Despite their incipient development the pedogenetic features of these paleosols provide valuable information about local paleoenvironments important for geoarchaeological research.

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