Earliest direct evidence of crop consumption in the central Tian Shan (Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan)

Summary

The main goal of this research is to explore the contribution of plant food to the diet of pastoral societies. It is still a subject of debate whether domesticated plants were being consumed and grown or just traded in this region during the Bronze Age, as the role of domesticated crops and their intensity of consumption in pastoral societies has been overlooked and until now hardly studied. This research presents the first results of stable carbon/nitrogen isotope analysis and archaeobotanical investigation results from the Prehistoric sites in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan of the central Tian Shan mountains. Obtained AMS dates of studied human bones and charred cereal macrofossils allowed to identify the earliest established agro-pastoralists in this region.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Food Globalisation in Prehistory

Keywords