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

Palaeodietary analysis of the Bronze Age and early Iron Age populations form the Minusinsk basin, Southern Siberia, Russia

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Plant food in the diet of the Early Iron Age pastoralists of Altai: Evidence from dental calculus and a grinding stone

Archaeological studies have hypothesized that the diversification of production activities was an important adaptive strategy of seasonally mobile herders in the Eurasian steppe belt. The aim of this study, based on the extraction of starches and phytoliths from dental calculus and a grinding stone, was to determine the composition of plant food in the diet of ancient Altai pastoralists. Specimens of dental calculus (n = 43) and a fragment of muller, attributed to the Early Iron Age (5th c. BC – 5th c. AD) archaeological cultures of the Forest-Steppe Altai and Altai Mountains (Russia) were examined. For the analysis of extracted residuals, both optical and scanning electron microscopies were used. Seven plant species were identified in dental calculus, two of them were found on the grinding stone as well. The results of the study suggest that the Early Iron Age Altai pastoralists incorporated small-scale farming and foraging into their subsistence strategy. They consumed cultivated cereals, peas, and wild edible plants. The most important plant components of their diet were millet and underground storage organs (bulbs, roots) of wild edible plants, including kandyk (Erythronium sibiricum), lily (Lily martagon), and peony (Paeonia anomala). Young green herbs, such as nettle (Urtica dioica) and cow parsnip (Heracleum dissectum), were also consumed, though the range of green food in the analysed group can be underestimated. Millet was possibly a prestige food. The wild edible plants seem to have been gathered to diversify the pastoralist diet rather than as a “famine food”.</p

Radiocarbon Chronology of Complexes with Seima-Turbino Type Objects (Bronze Age) in Southwestern Siberia

AbstractThis paper discusses the chronology of burial grounds containing specific Seima-Turbino type bronze weaponry (spears, knives, and celts). The “transcultural” Seima-Turbino phenomenon relates to a wide distribution of specific objects found within the sites of different Bronze Age cultures in Eurasia, not immediately related to each other. The majority of the Seima-Turbino objects represent occasional findings, and they are rarely recovered from burial grounds. Here, we present a new set of14C dates from cemeteries in western Siberia, including the key Asian site Rostovka, with the largest number of graves containing Seima-Turbino objects. Currently, the presented database is the most extensive for the Seima-Turbino complexes. The resulting radiocarbon (14C) chronology for the western Siberian sites (22nd–20th centuries cal BC) is older than the existing chronology based on typological analysis (16th–15th centuries BC) and some earlier14C dates for the Seima-Turbino sites in eastern Europe. Another important aspect of this work is14C dating of complexes within specific bronze objects—daggers with figured handles—which some researchers have related to the Seima-Turbino type objects. These items are mostly represented by occasional finds in Central Asia, however, in western Siberia these have been recovered from burials, too. The14C dating attributes these daggers to the end of the 3rd millennium cal BC, suggesting their similar timing to the Seima-Turbino objects. Further research into freshwater reservoir offsets in the region is essential for a more reliable reconstruction of the chronology of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon and the daggers with figured handles.</jats:p