Abstract
Mobile pastoralists are thought to have facilitated the first trans-Eurasian dispersals of domesticated plants during the Early Bronze Age (ca 2500–2300 BC). Problematically, the earliest seeds of wheat, barley and millet in Inner Asia were recovered from human mortuary contexts and do not inform on local cultivation or subsistence use, while contemporaneous evidence for the use and management of domesticated livestock in the region remains ambiguous. We analysed mitochondrial DNA and multi-stable isotopic ratios (δ13C, δ15N and δ18O) of faunal remains from key pastoralist sites in the Dzhungar Mountains of southeastern Kazakhstan. At ca 2700 BC, Near Eastern domesticated sheep and goat were present at the settlement of Dali, which were also winter foddered with the region's earliest cultivated millet spreading from its centre of domestication in northern China. In the following centuries, millet cultivation and caprine management became increasingly intertwined at the nearby site of Begash. Cattle, on the other hand, received low levels of millet fodder at the sites for millennia. By primarily examining livestock dietary intake, this study reveals that the initial transmission of millet across the mountains of Inner Asia coincided with a substantial connection between pastoralism and plant cultivation, suggesting that pastoralist livestock herding was integral for the westward dispersal of millet from farming societies in China.
Highlights
By primarily examining livestock dietary intake, this study reveals that the initial transmission of millet across the mountains of Inner Asia coincided with a substantial connection between pastoralism and plant cultivation, suggesting that pastoralist livestock herding was integral for the westward dispersal of millet from farming societies in China
Mounting archaeological research in the Eurasian steppes demonstrates that pastoralists associated with diverse Bronze Age cultures and later nomadic empires engaged in farming to a far greater degree than previously thought [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Combined genetic and stable isotopic analyses of faunal skeletal remains from settlement sites in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) reveal the earliest evidence in Inner Asia for domesticated sheep, goat, and cattle and their intensive management by way of foddering with cultivated millet
Summary
Mounting archaeological research in the Eurasian steppes demonstrates that pastoralists associated with diverse Bronze Age cultures and later nomadic empires engaged in farming to a far greater degree than previously thought [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The general paucity of faunal remains of domesticated bovids dating to the Early Bronze Age in Inner Asia or northern China obscures the timing of the spread of pastoralist subsistence through this continental crossroad [14]. We performed genetic and isotopic analyses of faunal bones and teeth from the newly discovered Early Bronze Age settlement site of Dali dating to ca 2700 BC, in addition to faunal remains from younger strata at nearby Begash and Tasbas containing millet remains (ca 2345 BC to AD 30; figure 1) These analyses, respectively, provide concrete taxonomic identifications of faunal remains and resolve dietary intake of livestock at multi-year and seasonal scales in order to assess when and how pastoralists facilitated early processes of food globalization in Eurasia. Documenting human millet intake expected with the adoption of this isotopically distinct C4 crop using stable carbon isotope analysis has been severely impeded by the paucity of human remains dated to the third millennium BC
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