A new article has been published in Quaternary Science Reviews, with Sambor Czerwiński as the first author. The authors demonstrate that long-term hydrological changes in peatlands in western Poland were closely linked to historical land-use changes. Based on high-resolution paleoenvironmental data and historical sources, they reconstructed nearly 1,000 years of human–environment interactions recorded in the Święte peatland.
The results indicate that the medieval intensification of Cistercian activities—including deforestation, agricultural development, and catchment modifications—led to permanent disturbances in the local hydrological regime and the transition from a fen to a raised bog more than 600 years ago. These changes initiated a long-term process of ecosystem transformation that clearly preceded modern and industrial forms of anthropogenic pressure.
The study shows that medieval land-use systems could trigger lasting changes in peatland functioning, determining their subsequent evolution regardless of later human impact.
Czerwiński S., Kołaczek P., Guzowski P., Gałka M., Karpińska-Kołaczek M., Marcisz K., Izdebski A., Pilloix M., Lamentowicz M., 2026, The Cistercians as forerunners of the Anthropocene: a multi-proxy paleoecological study from western Poland. Quat. Sci. Rev. 375, 109779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109779 LINK