Aim We provide the first European‐scale geospatial training set relating the charcoal signal in surface lake sediments to fire parameters (number, intensity and area) recorded by satellite moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors. Our calibration is intended for quantitative reconstructions of key fire‐regime parameters by using sediment sequences of microscopic (MIC from pollen slides, particles 10–500 µm) and macroscopic charcoal (MAC from sieves, particles > 100 µm). Location North–south and east–west transects across Europe, covering the mediterranean, temperate, alpine, boreal and steppe biomes. Time period Lake sediments and MODIS active fire and burned area products were collected for the years 2012–2015. Methods Cylinder sediment traps were installed in lakes to annually collect charcoal particles in sediments. We quantitatively assessed the relationships between MIC and MAC influx (particles/cm2/year) and the MODIS‐derived products to identify source areas of charcoal and the extent to which lake‐sediment charcoal is linked to fire parameters across the continent. Results Source area of sedimentary charcoal was estimated to a 40‐km radius around sites for both MIC and MAC particles. Fires occurred in grasslands and in forests, with grass morphotypes of MAC accurately reflecting the burned fuel‐type. Despite the lack of local fires around the sites, MAC influx levels reached those reported for local fires. Both MIC and MAC showed strong and highly significant relationships with the MODIS‐derived fire parameters, as well as with climatic variation along a latitudinal temperature gradient. Main conclusions MIC and MAC are suited to quantitatively reconstructing fire number and fire intensity on a regional scale. However, burned area may only be estimated using MAC. Local fires may be identified by using several lines of evidence, e.g. analysis of large particles (> 600 µm), magnetic susceptibility and sedimentological data. Our results offer new insights and applications to quantitatively reconstruct fires and to interpret available sedimentary charcoal records.

The Scythians are frequently presented, in popular and academic thought alike, as highly mobile warrior nomads who posed a great economic risk to growing Mediterranean empires from the Iron Age into the Classical period. Archaeological studies provide evidence of first millennium BCE urbanism in the steppe while historical texts reference steppe agriculture, challenging traditional characterizations of Scythians as nomads. However, there have been few direct studies of the diet and mobility of populations living in the Pontic steppe and forest-steppe during the Scythian era. Here, we analyse strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope data from human tooth enamel samples, as well as nitrogen and carbon isotope data of bone collagen, at several Iron Age sites across Ukraine commonly associated with ‘Scythian’ era communities. Our multi-isotopic approach demonstrates generally low levels of human mobility in the vicinity of urban locales, where populations engaged in agro-pastoralism focused primarily on millet agriculture. Some individuals show evidence for long-distance mobility, likely associated with significant inter-regional connections. We argue that this pattern supports economic diversity of urban locales and complex trading networks, rather than a homogeneous nomadic population.

A new series of 19 radiocarbon dates provides new insights on the human settlement activity in central Ukraine. The paper presents data from the Early Holocene until the establishment of Trypillian mega-sites in the late Vth mill. BC. Our new dates from a long sequence of the site of Melnychna Krucha refine the chronology of the Middle and Late Mesolithic and local ceramic-bearing “Buh-Dniester” culture. Additional dates were obtained on bones from Linear Pottery culture sites and Trypillian sites of stages A3 and B1.

High mobility among Scythian populations is often cited as the driving force behind panregional interactions and the spread of new material culture c.700-200 BCE, when burgeoning socioeconomic interactions between the Greeks, Scythian steppe pastoralists and the agropastoral tribes of the forest-steppe played out across the region. While interregional mobility central to warrior lifestyles is assumed to have been a defining feature of Scythian populations, strikingly few studies have investigated human mobility among communities located along the steppe and forest-steppe boundary zone. Here, we document movement and dietary intake of individuals interred at Bel'sk, a large urban settlement in Ukraine, through strontium, oxygen and carbon isotope analyses of human tooth enamel. The results provide direct evidence for limited mobility among populations from Bel'sk, demonstrating the movement into, and out of, urban complexes. Strontium and oxygen isotope analyses reveal that groups at Bel'sk remained local to the urban complex. Dietary intake, reflected in carbon isotopes, was based on domesticated crops and livestock herding. The combination of low mobility alongside dietary evidence suggests local groups engaged in sedentary agro-pastoral subsistence strategies that contrast sharply with the picture of highly mobile Scythian herders dependent on livestock portrayed in historical sources.

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