Biologists and archaeologists from Tomsk State University (TSU) have found that human activity over the centuries has increased fertility and accumulated carbon in Siberian soils. The research was carried out on the territory of ancient settlements – Ket fort and Shaitan III. The results showed that even hundreds of years after the disappearance of these settlements, the soils retain elevated carbon and nutrient content.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Scientists studied four soil profiles at two archaeological sites and compared them with intact taiga sites. It turned out that in places where people lived, the concentration of carbon is several times higher than in natural analogues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Ketsky fort is a settlement of the 17th\u201320th centuries, where local residents were engaged in agriculture. Thanks to soil fertilization with ash and organic waste, their fertility is still preserved, although people left this place more than 60 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Shaitan III \u2013 a settlement of metallurgists and horse breeders (X\u2013XVII centuries). Here the soils are rich in carbon due to charred organic matter, making them similar to the famous Amazonian dark lands. However, unlike the Amazon, these changes were not the result of targeted influence, but of the daily activities of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The study found that Shaitan III soils stored carbon 10 times more efficiently than pristine taiga sites. Even 400 years after people left the site, carbon remains in a stable state.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cSuch territories can be called ancient carbon farms,\u201d explains Sergei Loiko, head of the BioGeoClim laboratory at TSU. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t set out to improve the soil, but their economic activities led to long-term carbon accumulation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Scientists plan to continue searching for similar soils in the Tomsk region to assess their potential for reducing greenhouse gas levels. Some of these sites may receive protected status as cultural heritage sites.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The study was carried out within the framework of the TSU project \u201cGlobal Earth Changes: Climate, Ecology, Quality of Life\u201d with the support of the Priority 2030 program.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Source: naked-science.ru<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n Photo: Excavations of the monuments of Shaitan III and the Ket fort \/ \u00a9 Photo courtesy of TSU BI scientist Sergei Loiko, TSU press service<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Biologists and archaeologists from Tomsk State University (TSU) have found that human activity over the centuries has increased fertility and accumulated carbon in Siberian soils. The research was carried out on the territory of ancient settlements – Ket fort and Shaitan III. The results showed that even hundreds of ye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Tomsk scientists have discovered centuries-old human influence on Siberian soils","_seopress_titles_desc":"A TSU study found that human activity increased fertility and accumulated carbon in Siberian soils. The effect persists centuries after the settlements disappear.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[306],"class_list":["post-60059","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","category-eco","tag-vliyanie-dobychi-na-okruzhayushhuyu-sredu"],"acf":[],"pbg_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan.webp",2048,1152,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-300x169.webp",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-768x432.webp",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-1024x576.webp",1024,576,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-1536x864.webp",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan.webp",2048,1152,false],"bricks_large_16x9":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-1200x675.webp",1200,675,true],"bricks_large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-1200x675.webp",1200,675,true],"bricks_large_square":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-1200x1152.webp",1200,1152,true],"bricks_medium":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-600x338.webp",600,338,true],"bricks_medium_square":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/drevnie-pochvy-sibiri-ket-ostrog-shaytan-600x600.webp",600,600,true]},"pbg_author_info":{"display_name":"Lyubov Cherkasova","author_link":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/author\/amourallis\/","author_img":false},"pbg_comment_info":" No Comments","pbg_excerpt":"Biologists and archaeologists from Tomsk State University (TSU) have found that human activity over the centuries has increased fertility and accumulated carbon in Siberian soils. The research was carried out on the territory of ancient settlements - Ket fort and Shaitan III. The results showed that even hundreds of ye","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/60059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/60059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}