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History
of the Białowieża Primeval Forest, NE Poland
Krystyna Milecka 1,
Agnieszka M. Noryśkiewicz 2 and Grzegorz Kowalewski 1
1Department of Biogeography and
Palaeoecology, A. Mickiewicz University, Dzięgielowa 27, 61-680 Poznań, Poland;
e-mail: milecka@amu.edu.pl; ichtys@amu.edu.pl
2Institute of Archaeology, Nicolaus
Copernicus University, Szosa Bydgoska 44/48, 87-100 Toruń, Poland; e-mail:
anorys@uni.torun.pl
Abstract
Białowieża in Poland
is a very famous region in Europe (because of
its primeval forest and bison population), but its environmental history is
poorly known. This article shows the results of palynological analysis, macrofossil
analysis and geological settings of two mires in the Białowieża Forest.
The pollen diagrams show changes of the vegetation cover from the younger part
of the Late Glacial until the present time. The relative time scale is based on
palynostratigraphy and comparison to published results of other sites from the adjacent
regions. During the Late Glacial two stages of the vegetation succession were
revealed: steppe and forest during the Alleröd period and tundra-like
vegetation during the Younger Dryas. The Holocene history consists of five
stages of plant cover development. The special features of the Białowieża Forest
are conditioned by two main factors: low degree of anthropogenic impact and
influences of continental climate and boreal zone, stronger than in the other
regions of Poland.
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