Kultūrinio kraštovaizdžio formavimasis Žemaičių aukštumoje

LTStraipsnyje yra analizuojamas kultūrinio kraštovaizdžio formavimasis Žemaičių aukštumoje. Paleobotaninių ir geomorfologinių dirvožemio duomenų kiekis yra nepakankamas norint atlikti pilną neolito laikotarpio Biržulio apylinkių kraštovaizdžio rekonstrukciją, ji atlikta tik labai apytikriai. Vėlyvojo neolito visuomenės primityvūs darbo įrankiai sąlygojo prieraišumą tai pačiai gamtinei aplinkai, kaip ir mezolito laikotarpiu. Tai nulėmė pirminių kultūrinio kraštovaizdžio arealų susiformavimą sausuose smėlinguose paežerių vietovaizdžiuose. Senojo geležies amžiaus (I – IV a.) didesnis kapaviečių kiekis liudija gyventojų skaičiaus padidėjimą. Tai rodo, kad lyginant su akmens ir žalvario amžiumi, gyventojai radikaliai pakeitė savo gyvenamąją aplinką. Gyventojų skaičiaus išaugimas lėmė gausesnio derliaus, kuriam išauginti reikėjo derlingesnių dirvožemių, poreikį. Skirtingai nei Aukštaitijoje, I-ame tūkstantmetyje po Kristaus (I – XII a.) Žemaitijoje susiformavo nuolatos gyvenami kompaktiški kultūrinio kraštovaizdžio arealai. Tai sąlygojo gausų kultūrinių elementų buvimą, dėl to kraštovaizdis čia tapo agrarinis arba miškingas. Šių arealų buvo stengiamasi neapleisti galbūt ir dėl gamtinių sąlygų, nes čia dirvožemiai yra rūgštūs, tad jie tampa derlingesni tik itin ilgai ir gausiai juos tręšiant. Žemaitijos kraštovaizdžio raida vėlesniais amžiais bei Žemaitijos agrarinio kraštovaizdžio specifika yra sulaukusi mažai tyrinėtojų dėmesio.Reikšminiai žodžiai: Kultūrinis kraštovaizdis; Žemaitija (Samogitia); Archeologiniai paminklai; Cultural landscape; Samogitia; Archaeological sites; Žemaitijos aukštuma; Neolitas; Geležies amžius; Samogitian Higland; Cultural ladscape; Neolithic; Iron Age; Kraštoavaizdis; Biržulio duburys; Samogitian Highland; Age.

ENThe rudiments of cultural landscape in the Samogitian Highland should be searched for in the Late Neolithic Age (3rd millennium ВС) in two sites: the Biržulis depression and the Upper Varduva of Šarnelė. To analyse a five-millennium period of the development of cultural landscape is a task necessitating comprehensive studies, therefore the current paper is limited to only two fragments of this evolution. The possibility to restore the Late Neolithic landscape of the Biržulis depression seems problematic. The evolution of the lake and the neighbouring bogs has been studied in a series of works; nevertheless, the water level in the lake(s) in the Neolithic Age and the time period at which the Beržulis-Stervas limnic area became overpeated remains not yet clear. A kind of the key to determining the former fluctuations of the water level in the lake can be the lower islands of Biržulis, which in the Neolithic and Early Neolithic Age in particular were populated. The character of the occurrence of cultured levels of the fifth Daktariškės settlement and the lake shore sediments allow to suggest that the level of Lake Biržulis in the Neolithic period could fluctuate around 152 m NN. However, this suggestion as well as the presence of residual lakes needs checking. The Late Neolithic landscape was reconstructed showing the water bodies that could be possibly present in the Biržulis depression, as well as the composition and humidity of forests at that time. The flora was reconstructed according to the pollen diagrams compiled by palynologists and accounting for pedogenetic rocks and soil cover structure.Four types of forests were distinguished: 1) dry pine predominating forests, sometimes mixed with spruce-trees, on sterile and poorly fertile sandy soil; 2) damp forests containing spruce, oak, lime, maple, elm trees on fertile loamy soils; 3) rather wet mixed forests of spruce, oak, birch, alder trees on temporarily wetted loamy soils; 4) wet and boggy mixed forests of alder, birch, spruce trees on marshy soils. The Neolithic settlements and finds, like those from the preceding Mesolithic time, in the Biržulis environs were distributed in the places overgrown with light dry pines which grew on light sandy soils. These types of soils prevail on the northern and partially on the northwestern shore of Lake Biržulis. Also the Šarnelė Neolithic settlement was situated in a similar natural environment. Late Neolithic settlements on Biržulis shores are situated at a distance of 1-1.5 km from each other, if they were synchronous. The cultivation of glade agriculture needed larger territories; therefore the fields that surrounded settlements could be situated within a radius of 2-2.5 km. These were densely populated areas with groves, fields and meadows. The nearby woods served as so-called wood pastures; these woods were with thin glades and underwoods. Still farther lay primary forests untouched by farming, which were used for hunting and berry picking. Attempt was made to highlight the most densely populated territories in the landscape of the 11,1 millennium В. C. Based on the archaeological atlas, burial grounds and hill-forts of the 1th-12th centuries, the known settlements were marked out. The evolution of cultured landscape in the Iron Age differed from that of the early period of its formation. Iron tools allowed cultivating the heavier and more fertile loamy soils.However, in the early period when only rather primitive soil cultivation tools were available, man searched for light sandy or lighter loam soils. This seems to have been the basic reason for a wider spreading of the primeval communities. Migration of inhabitants and the beginning of agriculture in the hilly till areas are proven by the presence of specific soil level elevations formed at the edges of fields by tilling at the foot of the hills. The radiocarbon dating of such accumulations proves this to have happened in the early and Old Iron Age. A more detailed picture of the Padievytis agrarian focus shows that the burial grounds of the same period in places of their densest distribution are situated at a distance of 3-4 km from each other, i.e. people lived within a radius of 1.5-2 km around a burial ground. Agrarian landscape territories around the 1st-12th c. burial grounds are shown at a possibly maximal radius of 4-5 km, thus emphasizing the densely populated agrarian areas, rather sparsely inhabited wooded areas and particularly sparsely populated dense forest tracks. The wooded territories of the early second millennium as more densely overgrown in many cases can be found also in the present day landscape, because forests remain to grow on the territories where soils unfavourable for agriculture prevail. Cultured landscape foci in Samogitian Higland, in contrast to East Lithuania, had to be very strongly pronounced and clearly differing from sparsely populated wooded territories, since in the 1st-12th centuries they were perpetually inhabited. This affection for the area was in part determined by natural conditions: the Samogitia soils are highly acid and thus difficult to culture. Only upon long and intensive fertilization they become more fertile, therefore such fields had to be appreciated, preserved and tended. [From the publication]