Mobility and diet in the Iron Age Pontic forest‐steppe: A multi‐isotopic study of urban populations at Bel'sk

Abstract

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.

New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

“…The now dated presence of millet from the mid-2nd millennium bc onwards in southern Ukraine shows that, from this point on, consumption of this crop could have represented the main source of C 4 forage and/or food both in coastal areas and, especially, inland. Indeed, in central and eastern Ukraine, a systematic increase in δ 13 C values is seen from the Bronze to the Iron Age, and significantly in the Early Iron Age and the Scythian period 69 [266, 273], 75,76 . Broomcorn millet grains from several Iron Age sites have been radiocarbon-dated in this and a previous study 77 .…”

Re-evaluating Scythian lifeways: Isotopic analysis of diet and mobility in Iron Age Ukraine

“…At the site of Medvin, we sampled 11 individuals (specimens of 15 teeth/10 bone), at Mamai-Gora we sampled 16 individuals (specimens of 25 teeth/15 bone) and at Bel’sk we sampled 29 individuals and 3 fauna (specimens of 32 bone). We compared this to previously published data compiled from Neolithic through Iron Age populations [ 54 – 56 ] across Ukraine, in order to directly test the degree of mobility and dietary reliance of Scythian era populations. Human isotope data provide insights into mobility and subsistence at the level of the individual.…”

“…Human isotope data provide insights into mobility and subsistence at the level of the individual. Strontium isotope analysis provides direct evidence for human mobility, as 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios in food and drink varies broadly in accordance with geology ( Fig 2 ), with distinctions being passed on to consumers [ 54 , 57 – 64 ].…”

“…We sampled a total of 9 human individuals (15 teeth) from Medvin and 13 human individuals (25 teeth) from Mamai-Gora for strontium isotope analysis. Dentition from the site of Bel’sk were analysed as part of a separate study [ 54 ]. The sampling strategy was designed to determine mobility over the lifetime of individuals from both sites.…”

“…We incorporated several different datasets to estimate 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios of bedrock geology and bioavailable strontium across Ukraine, which currently includes all bioavailable datasets for the region. Predictive modelling of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios of various geological members across Europe [ 88 ], was compared to all published bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios of ancient human enamel, rodent enamel, and plants [ 54 , 55 , 89 ], as well as values from ancient bison enamel [ 90 ]. Seven of the 13 archaeological sites under study had bioavailable strontium ratios from plants and/or fauna in the vicinity of the site (S3 Table in S1 File ).…”