Abstract Soil examination can provide useful forensic information about the spatial location and human activities of a suspect. Soil is widely used in criminal investigations. In a case that occurred in the countryside of Jilin Province, in the NE of China, soil was found adhering to clothing on a body. Examination of plant debris in the soil using plant DNA barcoding technique found it to be ginseng root, which indicated that the soil might have come from a ginseng plantation. In the first instance, it helped in finding the place where the body was initially buried. Then a comparison was made between the soil recovered from the body and from the ginseng plantation. Composite analysis of minerals, pollen types and elements provided additional information to assist in making comparisons. Trace amounts of soil located on the body played an important role in locating the burial site and was regarded as the most valuable evidence in convicting the suspect of murder even without the suspect's DNA being available.

Abstract: Permian palynostratigraphic schemes are used primarily to correlate coal- and hydrocarbon-bearing rocks within basins and between basins, sometimes at high levels of biostratigraphic resolution. Up to now, their main shortcoming has been the lack of correlation with schemes outside the basins, coalfields and hydrocarbon fields that they serve, and chiefly a lack of correlation with the international Permian scale. This is partly because of phytogeographical provinciality from the Guadalupian onwards, making correlation between regional palynostratigraphic schemes difficult. However, local high-resolution palynostratigraphic schemes for regions are now being linked either by assemblage-level quantitative taxonomic comparison or by the use of single well-characterized palynological taxa that occur across Permian phytogeographical provinces. Such taxa include: Scutasporites spp., Vittatina spp., Weylandites spp., Lueckisporites virkkiae , Otynisporites eotriassicus and Converrucosisporites confluens . These palynological correlations are being facilitated and supplemented with radiometric, magnetostratigraphic, independent faunal and strontium isotopic dating.

Pollen and lithopedological data were obtained from Upper Paleolithic sites and Upper Pleistocene loess-soil sequences located between the Sea of Azov and the River Donets, and in the foothills of the Crimean Mountains. During the last Middle Pleniglacial interstadial (Upper Vytachiv soil, 30–27 ka), there existed boreal steppe (south-boreal forest-steppe in Crimea). During the Late Pleniglacial, two main phases of loess accumulation occurred, which were separated by the phase of initial pedogenesis. The loess accumulated under subperiglacial xeric steppe (particularly dry at 15–13 ka), and the incipient soils (Dofinivka unit, 18–15 ka) formed under boreal grassland. During the Late Glacial interstadials, there existed boreal and south-boreal forest-steppe with a relatively wet climate (middle Prychernomorsk soil unit, the upper soil 11.8–11.4 ka). During the Younger Dryas, grassland reappeared under a dry and cool climate (10.9–10.5 ka). Paleoclimatic changes demonstrate the same pattern in both studied areas, and they correspond well with Black Sea transgressive-regressive cycles. Regional differences still existed—during all phases, the climate was the mildest in the western foothills of the Crimean Mountains, the coldest in the Donetsk Upland, and the driest near the Sea of Azov.

We discuss pollen, soil, geomorphologic, and archaeological records used for reconstructing climatic, biogeographic, and human-environment events in the Crimean Peninsula during the past 130 k.y. Warm and moist conditions conducive to forest growth prevailed during the Eemian Interglacial (marine isotope stage [MIS] 5e). Although sea levels were higher than at present, a review of the stratigraphic and geomorphic data suggests that the peninsula was not detached from the mainland. During the last glacial period (MIS 5d–MIS 2), conditions fluctuated between steppe and tree growth in warmer places during the stadials, and forest-steppe during the interstadials. The Pleistocene–Holocene transition involved forest growth during the Bølling-Allerød interstadials, steppe during the Younger Dryas, and a forest-steppe during the early Holocene. The establishment of the modern Black Sea ca. 7 ka and increasing temperatures led to the formation of the modern vegetation belts, ushering in optimal conditions for the establishment of Neolithic communities. A dry period peaked around 4–3.5 ka, followed by milder conditions that lasted until the colonization of Crimea by Greek farmers during the middle part of the first millennium A.D. Dry conditions at the end of the same millennium led to the abandonment of agriculture and settlement decline. Sea-level oscillations during the late Holocene had an important effect on shoreline configuration, lagoonal systems, coastal wetlands, and human settlements. Data used in this paper were drawn from a number of published papers, mostly in Russian and Ukrainian, as well as records produced by the authors' research.