Bronze Age herders were less mobile than previously thought

Date:
October 21, 2020
Source:
University of Basel
Summary:
Bronze Age pastoralists in what is now southern Russia apparently
covered shorter distances than previously thought. It is believed
that the Indo- European languages may have originated from this
region, and these findings raise new questions about how technical
and agricultural innovations spread to Europe.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Bronze Age pastoralists in what is now southern Russia apparently
covered shorter distances than previously thought. It is believed that
the Indo- European languages may have originated from this region, and
these findings raise new questions about how technical and agricultural innovations spread to Europe. An international research team, with
the participation of the University of Basel, has published a paper on
this topic.


========================================================================== During the Bronze Age (ca. 3900 -- 1000 BCE), herders and their families
moved across the slopes of the Caucasus and the steppes to the north,
taking their sheep, goats and cattle with them. It is believed that
the Indo-Germanic groups, who brought the Indo-European languages and
technical innovations such as wagons, domestic horses and metal weapons
to Europe, may have originated from this region.

Until now, experts assumed that this transfer of technology was based
on the long-distance migrations and trade contacts of these mobile
pastoral communities, and that this mobility connected the Middle East
with Europe. An international research team, with the participation of
the University of Basel, has now questioned whether these communities
did actually travel over such long distances. They published their study
in the journal Plos One.

Nutrition reveals low levels of mobility The researchers reconstructed the
diet of the Bronze Age pastoral societies in order to draw conclusions
about their migration. Their analysis was based on skeletal remains
from burial mounds and flat grave cemeteries on the plateaus of the
Caucasus and the steppes bordering to the north. "These human bones and
teeth are archaeological treasures," says the study's author Professor
Kurt Alt, visiting professor at the University of Basel and professor
at Danube Private University in Krems. "They are fundamental resources
for gaining a deeper understanding of economic strategies, the mobility patterns associated with them and social differentiation." The research
team analyzed the isotopic composition of carbon and nitrogen in bone
collagen from the skeletal remains of 150 people, taken from eight sites.

The finds date back to a period from about 5000 to about 500 BCE. In
addition, the scientists compared this data with the isotope ratios in
the bone collagen of 50 animals, as well as with the local vegetation
of that time. The isotope ratios in bone collagen reflect the isotope
ratios in the main foodstuffs that a person eats.

As it turns out, the diets of these groups were mainly based on the
foodstuffs within the landscapes where their remains were found. "The communities apparently remained within their respective ecological areas
and did not switch between the steppes, forest steppes or higher regions," explains Sandra Pichler from the Department of Environmental Sciences
at the University of Basel, co- author of the study. According to the
isotope analysis, meat, milk and dairy products formed a large part of
these individuals' basic diets, but they were supplemented by wild plants,
too. It was not until the end of the Bronze Age that their diets began
to be based more on cultivated cereals, with millet presumably the main
crop in this regard.

Technology transfer by word of mouth "This study's findings imply that Caucasian communities were not highly mobile and did not undertake
large-scale migrations, suggesting that the revolutionary technical
innovations of the 4th and 3rd millennium BCE, such as wagons or metal
weapons, were transmitted in other ways." If the pastoral communities
of the time only moved across shorter distances, technologies could have
been passed on from one group to the next transmitting the knowledge of
metal weapons, the processing of bronze and the domestication of horses
into Europe by word of mouth.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Basel. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Corina Knipper, Sabine Reinhold, Julia Gresky, Nataliya Berezina,
Claudia
Gerling, Sandra L. Pichler, Alexandra P. Buzhilova, Anatoly R.

Kantorovich, Vladimir E. Maslov, Vladimira G. Petrenko, Sergey V.

Lyakhov, Alexey A. Kalmykov, Andrey B. Belinskiy, Svend Hansen,
Kurt W.

Alt. Diet and subsistence in Bronze Age pastoral communities from
the southern Russian steppes and the North Caucasus. PLOS ONE,
2020; 15 (10): e0239861 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239861 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201021111553.htm

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