Climate and environmental dynamics of the mid- to late Holocene settlement in the Tobol–Ishim forest-steppe region, West Siberia

Abstract

Environmental archaeology multi-proxy records provide eloquent evidence of climate changes and the related natural transformations in the forest-steppe/parkland zone of SW West Siberia during the last ca. 8500 years from the late Boreal to Sub-Atlantic period, chronologically encompassing the regional cultural evolution time span from the Mesolithic through the Neolithic, Aeneolithic, the Bronze and Iron Ages to historical times. Close links of the palaeoclimate conditions and the early occupation migrations in the Tobol–Ishim region are manifested by specific socio-economic adaptive patterns reflecting landscape dynamics and availability of natural resources as well as scale and intensity of broader territorial cultural interactions. Pollen spectra from the investigated stratified archaeological sites and palynological sections indicate large-scale landscape restructurings related to both the natural as well as intensified anthropogenic activities. The periodic climate aridization of the Central Asian climate regime leading to the northern expansion of steppes in the south of West Siberia repeatedly activated inflow of pastoralist communities from the south-west further north and east into the former forest-steppe and taiga parkland zones at several stages during the Holocene. In contrast, during the moderately cold and humid intervals with intensified precipitations due to the strengthening influence of the Atlantic atmospheric streams, aboriginal groups of hunters and fishermen linked to the antecedent West Siberian and Trans-Ural Mesolithic cultures expanded into the former open southern steppe regions in the process of re-establishment of the southern taiga parkland/forest environments. These climatically-triggered vegetation zone shifts and territorial population movements are well manifested in the material culture.