Dental health, diet, and social transformations in the Bronze Age: Comparative analysis of pastoral populations in northern Kazakhstan

Miller, Alicia R. Ventresca; Usmanova, Emma; Logvin, Viktor; Kalieva, Saule; Shevnina, Irina; Logvin, Andrey; Kolbina, Alina; Suslov, Aleksander

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.01.036

Cited by 22 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…; Ventresca Miller et al . in press) to study diet at Middle Bronze Age Bestamak and Late Bronze Age Lisakovsk in northern Kazakhstan. These analyses suggest that some individuals supplemented their diets with freshwater fish, with little change in diet between the two periods considered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How ‘Pastoral’ is Pastoralism? Dietary Diversity inBronzeAgeCommunities in the CentralKazakhstan Steppes

et al. 2014

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Steppe communities have traditionally been viewed as pastoralist groups with similar herdbased economies. Recent scholarship, however, warns against assumptions of homogeneity and new scientific techniques are providing a more nuanced approach to steppe archaeology, with increasing indications of diversity. This recent evidence further suggests that considering these communities as primarily pastoralist may hide a variety of subsistence strategies, such as fishing and cultivation. Here, we consider direct evidence for diet (in the form of stable isotope analysis) from Bronze Age communities from central Kazakhstan, in the semi-arid steppe zone. We find that the diversity recently suggested for communities across the steppe zone can be found within sites in the Karaganda region. This suggests that individuals exercised choice in their dietary habits that led to dietary differences large enough to be detectable isotopically. The results also highlight the inclusion of fish in the diet of these 'pastoral' populations, with indications that some individuals in the Final Bronze Age consumed notable amounts of millet. This shows that these 'pastoralist' economies also engaged in fishing throughout the Bronze Age, with millet cultivation becoming increasingly important in the Final Bronze Age. As such, our understanding of what it means, in this context, to be a pastoralist requires further consideration.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How ‘Pastoral’ is Pastoralism? Dietary Diversity inBronzeAgeCommunities in the CentralKazakhstan Steppes

et al. 2014

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“…The flat grave cemetery of Klin Yar provided the first extensive C and N isotope dataset from a Caucasus upland plateau and attested to dietary change from the Early Iron Age to the Early Medieval period [ 13 ]. In the south Caucasus mountains [ 84 , 85 ] and in the steppe areas beyond the north Caucasus, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data helped exploring Bronze Age subsistence strategies, in Kazakhstan [ 31 , 36 , 86 , 87 ], the Samara micro-region in the Volga area [ 88 ], the southern Ural mountains [ 89 ], and in Siberia [ 76 ]. Along with the results of recent ancient DNA analyses [ 7 , 90 , 91 ], these studies form a solid framework for the interpretation of the data presented here.…”

Section: Principles Of Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Stable Isotope Analmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The youngest burials are represented by five Late Catacomb inhumations. Four graves of the Maykop, Yamnaya, and Catacomb cultures contained wooden wagons [ 45 , 87 – 89 , 95 ]. In all, the sample from Sharakhalsun comprised 17 human individuals and 26 animal bones.…”

Section: Investigated Sites and Sampled Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet and subsistence in Bronze Age pastoral communities from the southern Russian steppes and the North Caucasus

et al. 2020

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The flanks of the Caucasus Mountains and the steppe landscape to their north offered highly productive grasslands for Bronze Age herders and their flocks of sheep, goat, and cattle. While the archaeological evidence points to a largely pastoral lifestyle, knowledge regarding the general composition of human diets and their variation across landscapes and during the different phases of the Bronze Age is still restricted. Human and animal skeletal remains from the burial mounds that dominate the archaeological landscape and their stable isotope compositions are major sources of dietary information. Here, we present stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data of bone collagen of 105 human and 50 animal individuals from the 5 th millennium BC to the Sarmatian period, with a strong focus on the Bronze Age and its cultural units including Maykop, Yamnaya, Novotitorovskaya, North Caucasian, Catacomb, post-Catacomb and late Bronze Age groups. The samples comprise all inhumations with sufficient bone preservation from five burial mound sites and a flat grave cemetery as well as subsamples from three further sites. They represent the Caucasus Mountains in the south, the piedmont zone and Kuban steppe with humid steppe and forest vegetation to its north, and more arid regions in the Caspian steppe. The stable isotope compositions of the bone collagen of humans and animals varied across the study area and reflect regional diversity in environmental conditions and diets. The data agree with meat, milk, and/or dairy products from domesticated herbivores, especially from sheep and goats having contributed substantially to human diets, as it is common for a largely pastoral economy. This observation is also in correspondence with the faunal remains observed in the graves and offerings of animals in the mound shells. In addition, foodstuffs with elevated carbon and nitrogen

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“…Kazakhstan is a multi-ethnic state and livestock-based country [1] that locates in the European and Asian continents; and the country has a long history since the Neolithic Age [2]. Artisanal foods are popular with the local area and the processing technology of such traditional food is almost completely preserved.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial microbiota of Kazakhstan cheese revealed by single molecule real time (SMRT) sequencing and its comparison with Belgian, Kalmykian and Italian artisanal cheeses

Zheng

et al. 2017

BMC Microbiol

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BackgroundIn Kazakhstan, traditional artisanal cheeses have a long history and are widely consumed. The unique characteristics of local artisanal cheeses are almost completely preserved. However, their microbial communities have rarely been reported. The current study firstly generated the Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing bacterial diversity profiles of 6 traditional artisanal cheese samples of Kazakhstan origin, followed by comparatively analyzed the microbiota composition between the current dataset and those from cheeses originated from Belgium, Russian Republic of Kalmykia (Kalmykia) and Italy.ResultsAcross the Kazakhstan cheese samples, a total of 238 bacterial species belonging to 14 phyla and 140 genera were identified. Lactococcus lactis (28.93%), Lactobacillus helveticus (26.43%), Streptococcus thermophilus (12.18%) and Lactobacillus delbrueckii (12.15%) were the dominant bacterial species for these samples. To further evaluate the cheese bacterial diversity of Kazakhstan cheeses in comparison with those from other geographic origins, 16S rRNA datasets of 36 artisanal cheeses from Belgium, Russian Republic of Kalmykia (Kalmykia) and Italy were retrieved from public databases. The cheese bacterial microbiota communities were largely different across sample origins. By principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), the structure of the Kazakhstan artisanal cheese samples was found to be different from those of the other geographic origins. Furthermore, the redundancy analysis (RDA) identified 16 bacterial OTUs as the key variables responsible for such microbiota structural difference.ConclusionOur results together suggest that the diversity of bacterial communities in different groups is stratified by geographic region. This study does not only provide novel information on the bacterial microbiota of traditional artisanal cheese of Kazakhstan at species level, but also interesting insights into the bacterial diversity of artisanal cheeses of various geographical origins.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12866-016-0911-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Dental health, diet, and social transformations in the Bronze Age: Comparative analysis of pastoral populations in northern Kazakhstan

Cited by 22 publications

References 31 publications

How ‘Pastoral’ is Pastoralism? Dietary Diversity inBronzeAgeCommunities in the CentralKazakhstan Steppes

How ‘Pastoral’ is Pastoralism? Dietary Diversity inBronzeAgeCommunities in the CentralKazakhstan Steppes

Diet and subsistence in Bronze Age pastoral communities from the southern Russian steppes and the North Caucasus

Bacterial microbiota of Kazakhstan cheese revealed by single molecule real time (SMRT) sequencing and its comparison with Belgian, Kalmykian and Italian artisanal cheeses

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