Humus in paleosols of archaeological monuments in the dry steppes of the Volga-Don interfluve

Traditional chemical methods and 13 C-NMR spectroscopy were used to study the humus in chestnut paleosols buried under kurgans of different ages (the 16th–15th centuries BC; the 1st, 2nd–3rd, and 13th–14th centuries AD) and under the Anna Ioanovna Rampart (1718–1720) and in their recent analogues on virgin plots. It was found that the decrease in the humus content of the paleosols as a result of the diagenetic processes is exponentially related to the age of the soil burial. The loss of humus from the upper 30 cm of the paleosol buried 3500 yrs ago amounted to 76 ± 14%, and this system did not reach a stationary state. The constants of the humus mineralization in the paleosols were determined. A tendency for an increase in the degree of the organic matter humification in the chestnut soils during the past 3500 yrs was found. With an increase in the age of the burial, the portion of aromatic structures in the structure of the humic acids increased and the portion of aliphatic fragments decreased. The cyclic changes in the composition of the humus related to the secular variations in the climatic humidity were identified.