The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia

By sequencing 523 ancient humans, we show that the primary source of ancestry in modern South Asians is a prehistoric genetic gradient between people related to early hunter-gatherers of Iran and Southeast Asia. After the Indus Valley Civilization’s decline, its people mixed with individuals in the southeast to form one of the two main ancestral populations of South Asia, whose direct descendants live in southern India. Simultaneously, they mixed with descendants of Steppe pastoralists who, starting around 4000 years ago, spread via Central Asia to form the other main ancestral population. The Steppe ancestry in South Asia has the same profile as that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe, tracking a movement of people that affected both regions and that likely spread the distinctive features shared between Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages

Climatic or dietary change? Stable isotope analysis of Neolithic–Bronze Age populations from the Upper Ob and Tobol River basins

Dietary changes in the populations inhabiting southwest Siberia and northern Kazakhstan indicate concurrent changes in the economy, at the same time marking the beginnings of East–West interaction across northern Eurasia. The introduction of domestic animal species of Near Eastern origin, such as sheep and goat, dramatically changed the lives of the local population. Past palaeodietary research using stable isotope analysis has mainly focussed on pastoral populations of the Bronze Age period. It is crucial, however, to assess the diets of humans and animals from earlier periods (Neolithic/Chalcolithic) in order to understand the timing and nature of dietary change during the Bronze Age of southwest Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, in particular the possible contribution of environmental change influencing dietary shifts. In this paper, we report the results of stable isotope analysis on 55 human and 45 faunal samples from southwest Siberia (Upper Ob River) and northern Kazakhstan (Tobol River basin), ranging from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. These data, combined with published human and faunal collagen results from the region as well as new accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dating results, indicate little change in animal diet over time, but a notable change in human diet at ca. 2500 cal. BC. The data allow us to determine the time when pastoralism came to the fore, with concomitant economic differences to the local population.</p

The evolution of dog diet and foraging: Insights from archaeological canids in Siberia

Research on the evolution of dog foraging and diet has largely focused on scavenging during their initial domestication and genetic adaptations to starch-rich food environments following the advent of agriculture. The Siberian archaeological record evidences other critical shifts in dog foraging and diet that likely characterize Holocene dogs globally. By the Middle Holocene, body size reconstruction for Siberia dogs indicates that most were far smaller than Pleistocene wolves. This contributed to dogs' tendencies to scavenge, feed on small prey, and reduce social foraging. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of Siberian dogs reveals that their diets were more diverse than those of Pleistocene wolves. This included habitual consumption of marine and freshwater foods by the Middle Holocene and reliance on C4 foods by the Late Holocene. Feeding on such foods and anthropogenic waste increased dogs' exposure to microbes, affected their gut microbiomes, and shaped long-term dog population history