Buried vertic paleosols of the North Caucasus in the third millennia BC

Paleosols buried under kurgans dating back to the Yamnaya, Catacomb, and Post-Catacomb cultural epochs of the Bronze Age (4600–3900 BP) on the territory of the Stavropol Upland (the North Caucasus) in the area occupied by vertic chernozems were studied. It was found that solonchakous and deeply solonchakous and solonetzic chestnut soils and solonetzes proper predominated in the study area during the Bronze Age. The solonetzic process was the leading pedogenetic process in the automorphic paleosols of the second half of the third millennium BC. The vertic features were weakly developed in the automorphic paleosols; they were better manifested in the paleosols developed on the floodplains. The paleosol data were used to reconstruct the environmental conditions in the region during the Bronze Age. The climatic conditions of that period were more arid and with less sharp contrasts between wet and dry seasons in comparison with the modern climate.