Short-term natural events at the thermal humid maximum in the tenth to twelfth centuries in the environs of early Yaroslavl

Abstract

The succession of short-term natural events at the thermal humid maximum in the Middle Ages (10th–12th centuries) within the forest zones of European Russia was established. The archaeological excavation in the most ancient part of the town of Yaroslavl opened a thick cultural horizon, where fragments of lacustrine deposits dating back to the 11th–12th centuries were preserved. The most ancient fragments of the construction, found in lacustrine deposits, date back to the first third of the 13th century. An analysis of the structural and textural peculiarities of these deposits made it possible to reconstruct types of hydrogeological regime in the Timerevo paleolake and a paleostrait between this paleolake and Lake Nero. Thus, the waterway between the central part of the Principality of Rostov and early Yaroslavl (the first Russian settlement at the Great Volga Waterway) was revealed. The probable reasons for a rapid warming event followed by a cooling one in the Middle Ages are discussed.