scholarly journals Early integration of pastoralism and millet cultivation in Bronze Age Eurasia

2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1910) ◽  
pp. 20191273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor R. Hermes ◽  
Michael D. Frachetti ◽  
Paula N. Doumani Dupuy ◽  
Alexei Mar'yashev ◽  
Almut Nebel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Early Integration ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Inner Asia ◽  
Plant Cultivation ◽  
Mobile Pastoralists ◽  
Stable Isotopic ◽  
Initial Transmission

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 (δ 13 C, δ 15 N and δ 18 O) 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.

scholarly journals Early agriculture and crop transmission among Bronze Age mobile pastoralists of Central Eurasia

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1783) ◽  
pp. 20133382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Spengler ◽  
Michael Frachetti ◽  
Paula Doumani ◽  
Lynne Rouse ◽  
Barbara Cerasetti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Seed Morphology ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Early Agriculture ◽  
Inner Asia ◽  
Regional Interaction ◽  
The Third ◽  
Central Eurasia ◽  
Mobile Pastoralists ◽  
Desert Regions

Archaeological research in Central Eurasia is exposing unprecedented scales of trans-regional interaction and technology transfer between East Asia and southwest Asia deep into the prehistoric past. This article presents a new archaeobotanical analysis from pastoralist campsites in the mountain and desert regions of Central Eurasia that documents the oldest known evidence for domesticated grains and farming among seasonally mobile herders. Carbonized grains from the sites of Tasbas and Begash illustrate the first transmission of southwest Asian and East Asian domesticated grains into the mountains of Inner Asia in the early third millennium BC. By the middle second millennium BC, seasonal camps in the mountains and deserts illustrate that Eurasian herders incorporated the cultivation of millet, wheat, barley and legumes into their subsistence strategy. These findings push back the chronology for domesticated plant use among Central Eurasian pastoralists by approximately 2000 years. Given the geography, chronology and seed morphology of these data, we argue that mobile pastoralists were key agents in the spread of crop repertoires and the transformation of agricultural economies across Asia from the third to the second millennium BC.

scholarly journals Dogs accompanied humans during the Neolithic expansion into Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 20180286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgane Ollivier ◽  
Anne Tresset ◽  
Laurent A. F. Frantz ◽  
Stéphanie Bréhard ◽  
Adrian Bălăşescu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Dna Sequences ◽  
Near East ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
Mitochondrial Lineage ◽  
Domestic Species ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Neolithic Expansion ◽  
The Bronze Age

Near Eastern Neolithic farmers introduced several species of domestic plants and animals as they dispersed into Europe. Dogs were the only domestic species present in both Europe and the Near East prior to the Neolithic. Here, we assessed whether early Near Eastern dogs possessed a unique mitochondrial lineage that differentiated them from Mesolithic European populations. We then analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences from 99 ancient European and Near Eastern dogs spanning the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age to assess if incoming farmers brought Near Eastern dogs with them, or instead primarily adopted indigenous European dogs after they arrived. Our results show that European pre-Neolithic dogs all possessed the mitochondrial haplogroup C, and that the Neolithic and Post-Neolithic dogs associated with farmers from Southeastern Europe mainly possessed haplogroup D. Thus, the appearance of haplogroup D most probably resulted from the dissemination of dogs from the Near East into Europe. In Western and Northern Europe, the turnover is incomplete and haplogroup C persists well into the Chalcolithic at least. These results suggest that dogs were an integral component of the Neolithic farming package and a mitochondrial lineage associated with the Near East was introduced into Europe alongside pigs, cows, sheep and goats. It got diluted into the native dog population when reaching the Western and Northern margins of Europe.

scholarly journals THE STUDY OF METAL VESSELSFROM ANATOLIA (III MILLENNIUM BC): MORPHOLOGY AND THE FINDS CONTEXT

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Л.И. Авилова
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Early State ◽  
The North ◽  
Metal Vessels ◽  
Functional Purpose ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Morphological Distribution

Статья посвящена металлическим сосудам раннего и среднего периодов бронзового века Анатолии. Цель исследования – попытка провести анализ хронологического и морфологического распределения металлических сосудов в регионе и уточнить их назначение, социальные и ритуальные функции с позиций анализа контекста обнаружения. В соответствии с поставленной целью материал рассматривается в нескольких аспектах: динамика распространения металлической посуды во времени; морфология и материал находок; функциональное назначение и социальные практики использования металлических сосудов. Автор подчеркивает значение таких находок для определения комплекса как элитарного, а также в связи с их функциональным использованием в ходе общественно значимых событий, таких, как церемониальная трапеза, в том числе погребальное пиршество. Несмотря на относительную малочисленность данной группы находок, металлические сосуды следует рассматривать как один из важных признаков иерархической структуры раннегосударственного общества, сложения цивилизаций ближневосточного типа. Это косвенно подтверждается отсутствием металлической посуды в памятниках III тыс. до н. э. в Северном Причерноморье. The paper explores metal vessels from the early and the middle periods of the Anatolian Bronze Age. The study attempts to analyze the chronological and morphological distribution of metal vessels in this region and clarify their purpose, social and ritual functions by analyzing the context of archaeological finds. In line with this aim, metal vessels are considered from several aspects: changes in their distribution over time; morphology and the material the finds are made from; functional purpose and social practices metal vessels were used in. The author emphasizes relevance of such finds for categorizing assemblages containing metal vessels as elite ones as well as highlights their significance in relation with their use in socially important events such as ceremonial feasts, including funerary feasts. Despite a relatively limited number of finds attributed to this group, metal vessels should be regarded as one of eloquent markers of a hierarchical structure of society in early state formations and development of civilizations of the Near Eastern type. The said is indirectly confirmed by absence of metal vessels in the III mill. materials from the North Ponticregion.

scholarly journals Mortuary Landscapes Revisited: Dynamics of Insularity and Connectivity in Mortuary Ritual, Feasting, and Commemoration in Late Bronze Age Cyprus

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 877
Author(s):  
Teresa Bürge
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
External Objects

The aim of the paper is to discuss mortuary contexts and possible related ritual features as parts of sacred landscapes in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Since the island was an important node in the Eastern Mediterranean economic network, it will be explored whether and how connectivity and insularity may be reflected in ritual and mortuary practices. The article concentrates on the extra-urban cemetery of Area A at the harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke, where numerous pits and other shafts with peculiar deposits of complete and broken objects as well as faunal remains have been found. These will be evaluated and set in relation to the contexts of the nearby tombs to reconstruct ritual activities in connection with funerals and possible rituals of commemoration or ancestral rites. The evidence from Hala Sultan Tekke and other selected Late Cypriot sites demonstrates that these practices were highly dynamic in integrating and adopting external objects, symbols, and concepts, while, nevertheless, definite island-specific characteristics remain visible.

scholarly journals THE LAND BEHIND THE LAND BEHIND BAGHDAD: ARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES OF THE UPPER DIYALA (SIRWAN) RIVER VALLEY

Iraq ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Casana ◽  
Claudia Glatz
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Physical Geography ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The North ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Regional Project ◽  
The Rich

While the Diyala (Kurdish Sirwan) River Valley is storied in Near Eastern archaeology as home to the Oriental Institute's excavations in the 1930s as well as to Robert McC. Adams’ pioneering archaeological survey, The Land Behind Baghdad, the upper reaches of the river valley remain almost unknown to modern scholarship. Yet this region, at the interface between irrigated lowland Mesopotamia and the Zagros highlands to the north and east, has long been hypothesized as central to the origins and development of complex societies. It was hotly contested by Bronze Age imperial powers, and offered one of the principle access routes connecting Mespotamia to the Iranian Plateau and beyond. This paper presents an interim report of the Sirwan Regional Project, a regional archaeological survey undertaken from 2013–2015 in a 4000 square kilometre area between the modern city of Darbandikhan and the plains south of Kalar. Encompassing a wide range of environments, from the rugged uplands of the Zagros front ranges to the rich irrigated basins of the Middle Diyala, the project has already discovered a wealth of previously unknown archaeological sites ranging in date from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic through the modern period. Following an overview of the physical geography of the Upper Diyala/Sirwan, this paper highlights key findings that are beginning to transform our understanding of this historically important but poorly known region.

The Elders of Early Dilmun

2019 ◽  
pp. 220-239
Author(s):  
Alexis T. Boutin ◽  
Benjamin W. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Mortuary Archaeology ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Adult Men ◽  
The Third ◽  
Second Millennium Bce ◽  
The University

This chapter draws on bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology to investigate three adult men in a brief case study from Early Dilmun, a Bronze Age polity that spanned the western edge of the Arabian/Persian Gulf at the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennium BCE. We draw our evidence from the Peter B. Cornwall Collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology on the University of California, Berkeley campus. Cornwall (1913–1972) excavated this evidence from Bahrain during his expedition to the region in 1940 and 1941. Cornwall later analyzed these mortuary contexts in several works—including his doctoral dissertation and a handful of articles—and then eventually deposited the skeletal remains and objects in the Hearst Museum. Since 2008, we have been analyzing and publishing materials from this collection under the auspices of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project. Using this evidence, we demonstrate both the possibilities and limitations of investigating masculinity in one specific ancient Near Eastern society.

6. The long interlude: (12th century to 7th century bc )

2016 ◽  
pp. 64-71
Author(s):  
Trevor Bryce
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The Bronze Age

In the early twelfth century bc, the Greek and Near Eastern worlds were shaken by a series of catastrophic upheavals that brought the Bronze Age to an end. ‘The long interlude’ outlines the period of Babylonian history spanning the centuries from the fall of the Kassite dynasty in the mid-twelfth century to the rise of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom in the late seventh. In the course of these centuries, a number of dynasties rose and fell in Babylonia, most of them weak and short-lived, reflecting the frequent ebb and occasional flow of Babylonia’s political and military fortunes. Environmental factors, new tribal groups, and the preservation of Babylonian cultural traditions are discussed.

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