Directly dated broomcorn millet from the northwestern Caucasus: Tracing the Late Bronze Age route into the Russian steppe

Abstract

This paper provides new radiocarbon dates for preserved remains of broomcorn millet discovered in Bronze Age occupation layers at the Guamsky Grot rock shelter in the northwestern Caucasus. The millet grains directly date between the 12th–10th centuries BC, which complements dates obtained on wood and bone samples from the same layer. The pottery assemblage retrieved from layer 4/5 in Guamsky Grot where the millet was found has stylistic similarities with the Kobyakovo and proto-Maeotian cultures. Concentration of carbonized unhusked millet seeds in a fireplace together with fragments of flat calcined stones implies the seeds drying in the course of which the grains accidentally burned down. All Late Bronze Age sites in the West Caucasus where millet has been discovered represent kindred cultural traditions originating from the proto-Colchis, the Ochamchiri and the Dolmen cultures. Taking into account the finds of broomcorn millet in the Kobyakovo layer at the Safyanovo site (the Lower Don area), it may be suggested that the millet growing tradition north of the West Caucasus, probably, spread together with the West-Caucasian ‘Kobyakovo’ population, which were sedentary and established settlements in the Steppe: first in the Kuban River Region and then further northward – in the Lower Don River Region. It is precisely the region where the harvesting bronze sickles of the Kuban group came in to use in the second half of the second mill. BC.