CONFERENCEPalaeo-geographic changes in the Sārnate former lagoon area
Laimdota Kalnina
University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences
Aija Cerina
University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences
Valdis Berzins
University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences
DOI: 10.22364/fg.17.1
Keywords: Littorina, gyttja, peat, pollen, plant macro-remains, water chestnut
Abstract
Due to the lowering of the Littorina Sea level before approximately 5000 years, Sārnate lagoon was separated from the sea and became a shallow lagoon lake, which gradually terrestrialised and filled in with peat. The aim of the research project reported in this paper was to characterise the changing palaeogeographical conditions in the former Sārnate lagoon area, as recorded by changes in sediment properties, pollen and plant macro-remain composition. The plant macro-remain and pollen studies indicate intensive human activity in the area during the latter part of the Holocene climatic optimum and the first part of the Late Holocene, Subboreal, including a record of Water chestnut (Trapa natans) fruits and pollen in the gyttja under the grass peat, indicating that water chestnut grew in the lake adjacent to the settlement. The presence of cereal and weed pollen confirms that agriculture was also being practiced, at least during the final phase of occupation, in the late 6th and the 5th millennium BP.