Fluvial dynamics and phases of landscape development in the bronze age settlement area of the Sambek valley (Northeastern hinterland of the sea of Azov)

Abstract

We present results of a geomorphological-sedimentological study on the Holocene evolution and the Bronze Age palaeoenvironment of a lowland river valley in the Russian northeastern Azov Sea hinterland. The study investigates the valley of the Sambek, 15 km west of the Don Delta. This area has been colonized since the Bronze Age, as settlements and burial mounds testify. The results show that in the early Holocene the valley loor was captured by a meandering river system and sedimentation was dominated by autochthonous processes in oxbow environments. From the mid-Holocene until about ifty years ago, allochthonous processes in the form of overbank deposition prevailed. After the construction of reservoirs along the river course in the 1960s, the luvial system changed back to autochthonous depositional processes. The prehistoric changes of the f luvial dynamics do not coincide with settlement phases. We assume they were climatically induced. Since the Bronze Age, siltation has caused a 3-4 m elevation of the valley loor. © 2016 Presses Universitaires de Provence. All rights reserved.