How did the people of the Caucasus region live in the Bronze Age? Up until now it has been assumed that they were nomadic cattle farmers who traveled supraregional distances. According to a study, they actually lived mainly on products from animal husbandry, but they were apparently not quite as happy to hike: indications of the diet of these people suggest that their mobility radii were smaller than expected. Their food came largely from the landscapes where their remains were found.
On the plateaus of the Caucasus and in the nearby steppes, thousands of burial mounds and numerous shallow burial grounds testify to the settlement of the region in what is now southern Russia during the Bronze Age – around 3900 to 1000 BC. It was previously assumed that these were pastoral nomads who might have played an important role in the development of Europe from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Have played. The slopes of the Caucasus and the steppe landscape to the north were ideal for keeping sheep, goats and cattle. It was previously assumed that the people of the region moved their herds seasonally over great distances and that they crossed various landscape zones during their supra-regional migration.
Highly mobile people in a connecting region?
“The Caucasus has always been a bridge connecting the Middle Eastern civilizations with Europe. The Caucasus was undoubtedly very important for the transfer of both technical and social innovations during the Bronze Age, ”says Svend Hansen from the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. To what extent the people of this region actually undertook extensive hikes and how they fed themselves, has so far remained unclear. In this context, Hansen and his international colleagues have now devoted a study to the Bronze Age inhabitants of the Caucasus.
The results are based on the examination of human remains from graves from eight sites as well as animal bones discovered together with them. They come from a time between the 5th millennium BC. And the time of the Sarmatians in the 1st millennium BC The scientists subjected the finds to an analysis of the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. By comparing the results, conclusions can be drawn about the food and its origin that living things once consumed, the scientists explain. “These bones and teeth are archaeological treasures,” says co-author Kurt Alt from the University of Basel. “They are the key to a profound understanding of the economy and the associated mobility patterns.”
Smaller mobility radii than expected
The mountains, the foothills and the steppe landscapes of the extensive study area are characterized by very different environmental conditions, say the researchers. As they explain, these features are associated with special patterns of isotopic compositions. This enabled them to determine specific regional differences in the isotopes in the possible foods. This in turn made it possible to compare the findings with the findings and to draw conclusions about the type and origin of the food.
The data, they report, confirmed a largely livestock-based economy using meat, milk and dairy products from domestic animals, especially sheep and goats. The results of the isotope analyzes cannot, however, only be explained by the consumption of these products. Instead, it stands to reason that other foods, such as fish and a variety of plant-based foods, also contributed to people’s diet.
The isotope patterns indicate that the food largely came from the areas and habitats in which the respective sites of the remains were, the researchers write. In other words: The people of that time primarily used food sources from the landscapes in which they were later buried. This in turn suggests: Their mobility radii were smaller than expected, the scientists write. “It is thus a contribution to the critical questioning of the paradigm of extensive migrations,” Hansen classifies the historical significance of the study.
Source: German Archaeological Institute, specialist article: PLoS ONE, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0239861