Проблема появления земледелия на Верхней Оби по данным археологии и изотопного анализа

Abstract

Stable isotope analysis is an important part of the interpretation process in modern archaeological studies, yet, it is not routinely applied to a sufficient extent. In the south of Western Siberia, isotope analysis has only recently begгan to be used. The research region belongs to the area where the societies of hunters and fishermen were formed in the Neolithic. In its northern (taiga) part they continued their existence until the modern period, while for the southern (steppe and forest-steppe) part the emergence of pastoral economy has been suggested for the Bronze Age, and its final formation for the Early Iron Age. Such reconstructions are primarily based on palaeozoological analysis and assessment of work tools, but the latest data shows the evolution of the subsistence of ancient societies in the south of Western Siberia in new light. The diet of the Neolithic to the Bronze Age populations of Altai was predominantly based on the C3 foodchains, but at least three people from three graves of the Ob River region in Altai (sites of Firsovo-14 and Plotinnaya) show C4 signal. The latter indicates the consumption of millet in the 14th–10th c. BC, which could be related to both its local cultivation, and import into the Irmen Culture region from the 14th c. BC. As a farmed crop, millet could have come to the area from Kazakhstan or the Minusinsk Basin. Findings of archaeobotanical materials (wheat and millet) have been recorded previously for the Late Bronze Age site of Milovanovo in Ob River region near Novosibirsk.