scholarly journals Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shevan Wilkin ◽  
Alicia Ventresca Miller ◽  
Ricardo Fernandes ◽  
Robert Spengler ◽  
William T.-T. Taylor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Milk Proteins ◽  
Rapid Onset ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
Animal Products ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
Horse Domestication

AbstractDuring the Early Bronze Age, populations of the western Eurasian steppe expanded across an immense area of northern Eurasia. Combined archaeological and genetic evidence supports widespread Early Bronze Age population movements out of the Pontic–Caspian steppe that resulted in gene flow across vast distances, linking populations of Yamnaya pastoralists in Scandinavia with pastoral populations (known as the Afanasievo) far to the east in the Altai Mountains1,2 and Mongolia3. Although some models hold that this expansion was the outcome of a newly mobile pastoral economy characterized by horse traction, bulk wagon transport4–6 and regular dietary dependence on meat and milk5, hard evidence for these economic features has not been found. Here we draw on proteomic analysis of dental calculus from individuals from the western Eurasian steppe to demonstrate a major transition in dairying at the start of the Bronze Age. The rapid onset of ubiquitous dairying at a point in time when steppe populations are known to have begun dispersing offers critical insight into a key catalyst of steppe mobility. The identification of horse milk proteins also indicates horse domestication by the Early Bronze Age, which provides support for its role in steppe dispersals. Our results point to a potential epicentre for horse domestication in the Pontic–Caspian steppe by the third millennium bc, and offer strong support for the notion that the novel exploitation of secondary animal products was a key driver of the expansions of Eurasian steppe pastoralists by the Early Bronze Age.

Patterns in the Population History of Northern Eurasia from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, Based on Craniometry and Genetics

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 140-151
Author(s):  
A. G. Kozintsev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Population History ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
History Of

Цель исследования — рассмотреть краниометрические данные о популяционной изменчивости на территории Северной Евразии под углом зрения генетических и отчасти лингвистических фактов. Измерения 66 серий мужских черепов разных эпох (от мезолита до раннего бронзового века) с этой территории обработаны статистическими методами, специально предназначенными для изучения пространственных закономерностей, в частности градиентов. С помощью неметрического многомерного шкалирования матрицы расстояний D2 (с поправкой на численность) получена двумерная проекция взаимоположения групп, построено минимальное остовное дерево, показывающее кратчайший путь между точками в многомерном пространстве. Обнаруживаемые генетическими и краниометрическими данными восточно-западные градиенты на территории Северной Евразии свидетельствуют, видимо, не столько о смешении, сколько о незавершенности процесса дифференциации бореального надрасового ствола. Западный компонент, представленный в Сибири и Центральной Азии носителями афанасьевской культуры, вероятно, мало повлиял на генетический облик местных популяций. Восточный компонент, проникший в неолите из Забайкалья в Прибайкалье, смешался там с автохтонным палеосибирским. Главный генетический маркер коренного населения — аутосомный компонент ANE — присутствовал в Сибири с верхнего палеолита. Автохтонными следует считать и обе евразийские формации — северную и южную. Статистический анализ позволил включить в их состав новые группы, причем границы первой расширились на восток до Кузнецкой котловины, а второй — на запад до Среднего Прииртышья. Участие восточно-европейских групп в генезисе северной евразийской формации и протоуральской общности обнаружить не удается.

The Aduun Chuluu Site and Cemetery of early Bronze Age in Wenquan (Arixang) County, Xinjiang

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Tianshan Mountains ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
Western Tianshan ◽  
Stone Slab ◽  
Cultural Connotations

AbstractIn 2012 and 2013, four large-scale architectural remains and 16 stone slab cists were excavated in Aduun Chuluu Site and Cemetery, from which potteries, stone implements, small bronze objects and gold-filled bronze earring and stone human statues were unearthed. The dates of the remains and burials were concentrated between the 19th to the 17th centuries BCE, which was the early Bronze Age in this region. This discovery is helpful for revealing the features of the sites of the early Bronze Age in the western Tianshan Mountains and provides important clues for the explorations on the cultural connotations of the early Bronze Age in Xinjiang and the cultural intercommunication in the Eurasian Steppe area at that time.

Patterns in the Population History of Northern Eurasia from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, Based on Craniometry and Genetics

2022 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 140-151
Author(s):  
A. G. Kozintsev
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Minimum Spanning Tree ◽  
Isolation By Distance ◽  
Kuznetsk Basin ◽  
Population History ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
Evolutionary Divergence ◽  
The Matrix

This study examines the craniometric differentiation of Northern Eurasian groups with reference to genetic and partly linguistic facts. Measurements of 66 series of male crania from that territory, dating to various periods from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, were subjected to statistical methods especially destined for detecting spatial patterns, specifi cally gradients. Using the nonmetric multidimensional scaling of the matrix of D2 distances corrected for sample size, a two-dimensional projection of group constellation was generated, and a minimum spanning tree, showing the shortest path between group centroids in the multivariate space, was constructed. East-west clines in Northern Eurasia, detected by both genetic and craniometric traits, likely indicate not so much gene fl ow as isolation by distance, resulting from an incomplete evolutionary divergence of various fi lial groups constituting the Boreal meta-population. The western fi lial component, which, in Siberia and Eastern Central Asia, is mostly represented by Afanasyevans, has evidently made little contribution to the genetic makeup of later populations. The eastern fi lial component, which had appeared in the Cis-Baikal region from across Lake Baikal no later than the Neolithic, admixed with the autochthonous Paleosiberian component. The latter’s principal marker—the ANE autosomal component—had been present in Siberia since the Upper Paleolithic. Likewise autochthonous were both Eurasian formations—Northern and Southern; statis tical analysis has made it possible to make these more inclusive, whereby the former has been expanded in the eastern direction to include the Kuznetsk Basin, and the latter westwards, to the Middle Irtysh. Nothing suggests that Eastern European groups had taken part in the origin of either the Northern Eurasian formation or the proto-Uralic groups.

scholarly journals Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski’s horses

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 360 (6384) ◽  
pp. 111-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charleen Gaunitz ◽  
Antoine Fages ◽  
Kristian Hanghøj ◽  
Anders Albrechtsen ◽  
Naveed Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Domestic Horses ◽  
Horse Domestication

The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski’s horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.

scholarly journals Freshwater Reservoir Effect on Redating of Eurasian Steppe Cultures: First Results for Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age Northeast Kazakhstan

Radiocarbon ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana V Svyatko ◽  
Ilya V Mertz ◽  
Paula J Reimer
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
River Region ◽  
First Results ◽  
Irtysh River ◽  
Naoh Treatment ◽  
Freshwater Reservoir ◽  
A Minor

Freshwater reservoir effects (FRE) can cause problems when radiocarbon dating human skeletal material from the Eurasian steppe. This article presents the first results of research into the extent of the FRE in the sites of Borly 4 (Eneolithic) and Shauke 1 and 8b (Early Bronze Age), northeastern Kazakhstan. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)14C dating and stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) analysis of associated groups of samples (32 samples, 11 groups in total) demonstrate the following: (a) the diet of the humans and fauna analyzed was based on the C3foodchain with no evidence of a C4plant (such as millet) contribution; aquatic resources apparently were a continuous dietary feature for the humans; (b) the first14C dates obtained for the Upper and Middle Irtysh River region attribute the Eneolithic period of the area to the 34th to 30th centuries BC, and the Early Bronze Age to the 25th to 20th centuries BC, with a ~450-yr hiatus between the two periods; (c) the maximum fish-herbivore freshwater reservoir offset observed equals 301 ± 4714C yr. As such,14C dates from aquatic and human samples from the area need to be interpreted with caution as they are likely to be affected by the offset (i.e. appear older). The article also discusses the effect of a sodium hydroxide (NaOH) wash on δ13C, δ15N, C:Natomiclevels and collagen yields of the bone samples. Our results indicate a minor but significant effect of NaOH treatment only on C:Natomicratios of the samples.

scholarly journals The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Zhang ◽  
Chao Ning ◽  
Ashley Scott ◽  
Qiaomei Fu ◽  
Rasmus Bjørn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Tarim Basin ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Milk Proteins ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Dental Calculus ◽  
Local Contribution ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
North And South ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractThe identity of the earliest inhabitants of Xinjiang, in the heart of Inner Asia, and the languages that they spoke have long been debated and remain contentious1. Here we present genomic data from 5 individuals dating to around 3000–2800 bc from the Dzungarian Basin and 13 individuals dating to around 2100–1700 bc from the Tarim Basin, representing the earliest yet discovered human remains from North and South Xinjiang, respectively. We find that the Early Bronze Age Dzungarian individuals exhibit a predominantly Afanasievo ancestry with an additional local contribution, and the Early–Middle Bronze Age Tarim individuals contain only a local ancestry. The Tarim individuals from the site of Xiaohe further exhibit strong evidence of milk proteins in their dental calculus, indicating a reliance on dairy pastoralism at the site since its founding. Our results do not support previous hypotheses for the origin of the Tarim mummies, who were argued to be Proto-Tocharian-speaking pastoralists descended from the Afanasievo1,2 or to have originated among the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex3 or Inner Asian Mountain Corridor cultures4. Instead, although Tocharian may have been plausibly introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants during the Early Bronze Age, we find that the earliest Tarim Basin cultures appear to have arisen from a genetically isolated local population that adopted neighbouring pastoralist and agriculturalist practices, which allowed them to settle and thrive along the shifting riverine oases of the Taklamakan Desert.

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