ALBERT

Description: Covered fossil soils as records of the initial medieval clearances? Case study from Warnsdorf. The Warnsdorf site, situated in the Tharandter Wald about 25 km southwest of Dresden, is presumed to be a key archaeological site for the settlement history of the Ore Mountains area. During several field campaigns in the 1980s, R. Spehr discovered a wooden well, built in 1162 by means of dendrochronology, as well as features related to clearings such as wooden chips and tree stumps under an artificial sand mound (Fig. 24). He concluded that Warnsdorf may represent a short-lived rural settlement that was established during the colonisation of the lower Ore Mountains reaches area since the mid -12th century and abandoned with the growing attraction of the nearby city of Freiberg (17 km southwest). To study the impact of this early rural colonisation on the environment, the fossil surface below the sand mound was sampled for palynological, macrobotanical, sedimentological and chronological re-assessment (Fig. 25). Indicators for local anthropogenic disturbance cycles are strong until the 15th century. Species like bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) indicate that the vegetation was burnt down as early as the 12th century and was followed by an expansion of Pinus sylvestris (pine). While R. Spehr had assumed an in-situ tree stump within the profile was related to forest clearance in the 12th century, reassessment of the wood did not show any signs of cutting. Although dendrochronological dating failed (124 tree-rings), a 14C- age of 1022–1122 cal AD from the outer ring shows that the life span of this tree predates the construction of the wooden well. Within the upper part of the peat, a layer of charcoals proves another cycle of woodland burning that dates to the 13th century. Together with an old 14C age of 1257–1400 cal AD from a nearby housing feature, a much longer use of this area now becomes apparent (Fig. 26). The overall low percentages of cereal pollen indicate that no arable land was cultivated at any point in this land-use history. We conclude that Warnsdorf does not represent a shortlived settlement but an area with a rather long and atypical cyclic history of land-use. Regarding the mound of sandy material, quarrying of sandstones may be a likely explanation.