Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Catena journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/catena Soil geochemistry of medieval arable fields in Lovětín near Třešť, Czech Republic Jan Horák a,b, ⁎ , Martin Janovský a,b , Michal Hejcman b , Ladislav Šmejda b , Tomáš Klír a a Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Celetná 20, CZ-116 36 Prague 1, Czech Republic b Department of Ecology, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague 6 - Suchdol, Czech Republic ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Historic land use Past human impact Multi-element analysis Multi-element chemical analyses ABSTRACT Lovětín was a medieval village located in the Bohemian-Moravian Upland (Czech Republic). It existed ap- proximately between the 14th and the 16th century and was comprised of up to 20 farmsteads. Arable farming based on a short-fallow cultivation system was its main means of subsistence. The fields of the village consisted of two main field areas (128 and 77 ha) and six smaller field areas (up to 8 ha). Our study focused on finding out how human activities have impacted the soil environment imprinted in its geochemical characteristics. The design was based on a 100-m grid (in some cases, a 50-m grid) covering the entire field system (plužina) of the village; soil samples were taken from the B horizon at a depth of 15 cm. The analysis was based on XRF spec- trometry, returning near total concentrations of the elements. The statistical and GIS analyses were performed on 338 samples, measuring the following elements: Al, Si, K, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Rb, Sr, Zr, Pb, Th, LE (light elements – combined concentrations for H to Na). The results of the analyses were processed by PCA after ilr transformation. The PCA indicated 16 principal components, of which three were interpreted as direct pro- ducts of past human activities. The main elements reflecting human activities were Mn, Sr, Th, K, Zn; P con- tributed also to the interpretations, although it was detected and measured only in 132 cases. Some of the elements were spatially connected to the village in terms of their concentrations, but the PCA did not reveal a strong connection (Ti, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zr). The spatial distribution of the principal components was varied, indicating a diversity in the spatial distribution of agricultural activities or of their intensity, as well as differences in land use management. Management was most intensive in the vicinity of the village built-up area up to a distance of 300–400 m. The village was probably deserted due to inadequate soil management strategies. 1. Introduction Human-soil relationships have been the focus of a large number of studies in the fields of natural sciences and archaeology (Bork et al., 1998; Walkington, 2010). The spectrum of sub-topics is wide and can be divided into: i) links between past settlements and basic soil types; ii) human influence on the pedogenesis and the topic of anthropogenic soils; iii) detailed on-site analysis (soil sometimes serves as an archive of human activities). The first sub-topic has a long tradition; e.g. in central Europe, Neolithic cultures and their links to loess substrates or cher- nozemic soils have been studied (Rulf, 1983, 1989, 1994) or the im- pacts of settlers colonising regions of higher altitudes (Dreslerová et al., 2013; Dreslerová and Kočár, 2013). The second sub-topic is probably the most studied one (e.g. Pears, 2012) and well-known outside the archaeological community. The traditional question of chernozems in temperate Europe (Eckmeier et al., 2007) is connected to other dis- ciplines (hypotheses of the influence of large herbivores; see Vera, 2000). There are also studies on soils anthropogenically ameliorated by micro-charcoals (Schier et al., 2013) and the prevailing anthropogenic characteristics of soils in the Amazon region (Mayle and Iriarte, 2014; Lewis et al., 2017). The third sub-topic of on-site analyses (e.g. Salisbury, 2013, Hejcman et al., 2013b) is often studied because the application of geochemical analyses is almost a standard in archae- ological research across Europe. On-site application has the advantage of a detailed spatial view. Although a detailed view can be applied to prehistoric sites (see Kristiansen (2001), who studied the diversity of soil types based on prehistoric land use), using this practice for historic sites enables us to work with the historic context (see Thurston (2009), using the social context obtained from written sources to better inter- pret the human-soil relationship on islands in the northern Atlantic). Although the social context can significantly influence the environment and soils, such studies are still scarce (Jones, 2009; Redman, 1999). Historic eras are important not only in terms of written sources. For example, the medieval era brought new technologies, new types of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2017.11.014 Received 1 April 2017; Received in revised form 3 November 2017; Accepted 9 November 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Celetná 20, CZ-116 36 Prague 1, Czech Republic. E-mail address: horakjan@fzp.czu.cz (J. Horák). Catena 162 (2018) 14–22 0341-8162/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T