Early integration of pastoralism and millet cultivation in Bronze Age Eurasia

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 (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.

A biodiverse package of southwest Asian grain crops facilitated high-elevation agriculture in the central Tien Shan during the mid-third millennium BCE

“…[7] and likely cultivated there and at Dali located at 1500 m.a.s.l. [16], both in the neighboring region of Semirech’ye (southeastern Kazakhstan), had previously implied that millet may have also reached the central Tien Shan by the end of the third millennium BCE. The definitive absence of millet at Chap II may indicate that 1) interaction networks reaching into the northern stretches of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor did not connect people living in the central Tien Shan or 2) an elevational ceiling for successful cultivation below 2000 m.a.s.l.…”

“…People may have been motivated to seek out high-mountain water sources, such as perennial springs, when the lowlands were characterized by water shortages due to glacial melt waters decreasing as precipitation diminished and ice sheets expanded. Moreover, herding domesticated animals would have also motivated people to seek highland settlements near rich, montane pastures, where they could have integrated pastoralist and plant cultivation strategies through foddering with agricultural byproducts and dung manuring [16]. One of the dominant species of wild plants at Chap II is Carex sp.…”

“…The few faunal skeletal remains were recovered from Chap II (~25 specimens), likely represent domesticated ruminant species. The presence of domesticated sheep and goats dated to ~2700 cal BCE were identified by mitochondrial DNA at Dali located in the Dzhungar Mountains of southeastern Kazakhstan [16]. It is possible that pastoralist subsistence spread northward through the Tien Shan mountains along the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor earlier than the occupation of Chap II [61], although additional excavation of a wider area of Chap II will aid in the recovery of additional faunal specimens.…”

“…As this mortuary context does not inform whether these grains were consumed by people or locally cultivated, Frachetti [12] applied the term “seeds for the soul” to describe a cultural context of the seeds that was focused on ritual use. Recently, isotopic analysis employing incremental sampling of ovicaprid tooth enamel bioapatite for δ 13 C and δ 18 O values has shown that domesticated animals at Begash and the adjacent Dali site, the latter dating approximately 400 years earlier than the former, were foddered with millet during winter, suggesting that the spread of pastoralist subsistence eastward was intricately tied to the subsequent westward dispersal of millet [16]. While this research sheds light on the intersection of the ritual use and economic value of millets, the cultural status of southwest Asian crops for local Central Asian societies during this period of early crop dispersals remains unclear.…”

Archaeobotanical investigations at the earliest horse herder site of Botai in Kazakhstan

“…Currently, the majority of the well-dated evidence for arable agriculture in Central Asia has been reported from piedmont sites of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor and dated to the Early Bronze Age period (mid third millennium BC) (Doumani et al 2015;Hermes et al 2019;Spengler et al 2014a, b). The earliest macrobotanical evidence of wheat (Triticum cf.…”