The spread of agriculture into northern Central Asia: Timing, pathways, and environmental feedbacks

Abstract

Over the past decade, researchers have directed greater focus toward understanding Bronze (3200–800 BC) and Iron Age (800 BC–AD 400) economies of Central Asia. In this article, we synthesize paleobotanical data from across this broad region and discuss the piecemeal archaeological evidence for agriculture in relation to environmental records of vegetation and climate change. The synthesis shows that agricultural products were present in northern Central Asia by the mid-3rd millennium BC; however, solid evidence for their spread even further north into the Altai Mountains and southern Siberia only comes from the late 2nd and early 1st millennia BC. The earliest crops introduced into Central Asia likely came as a mixed package of free-threshing wheat, naked barley, and broomcorn millet, an assemblage pioneered further south along the northern foothills of the Central Asian mountains. Further east, in Mongolia, and debatably to the west of Central Asia, in the steppe of northern Kazakhstan and the southern Ural region of Russia, the earliest evidence of agriculture (with a similar mixed assemblage) is considerably later, roughly late 1st millennium BC. The lack of clear-cut early evidence for agricultural goods either east or west of the Central Asian mountain belt suggests that agriculture spread northward along these mountains, based on an agropastoral system pioneered millennia earlier at higher elevations of lower latitudes. Additionally, moister regional environmental conditions in the northern mountains after 3000 cal. BC may have increased the favorability of adopting an agricultural component in the economy.

Economic Diversification Supported the Growth of Mongolia’s Nomadic Empires

“…There are some archaeobotanical data suggesting the use of crops in Mongolia starting around c. 100 B.C.E. -200 CE 25,26 , though these have been dismissed as reflective of trade rather than local production 6,27 . Overall, due to issues of wind deflation and a lack of sampling during excavation, archaeobotanical evidence from Mongolia is severely lacking.…”

The geographical prerequisites for the identification and prevention of dangerous geomorphological processes in the mountain geosystems of the Alpine-Himalayan belt (on the example of the Major Caucasus of Azerbaijan)

“…This causes intensive degradation of the natural resource potential of mountainous and piedmont territories, which are viewed as a means of achieving economic goals. The geo-systems of such regions lose their stability to external impacts, which increases the probability of dangerous destructive natural phenomena occurring (Alizade andTarikhazer, 2010, 2015;Gotvansky, 2010;Mazur, 2004;Jansky, 2006;Spengler et al, 2016). Human activity combined with climate change have a direct effect on the formation and development of destructive natural phenomena, such as mudflows, screes, landslides, avalanches, desertification, etc.…”

“…The lithological factor also has a significant impact. Man-caused processes have a dual effect: stabilizing at the local level (for instance, in case of forestation of hillslopes), but destabilizing during the development of regions (Gotvansky, 2010;Mazur, 2004;Jansky, 2006;Spengler et al, 2016;Kang et al, 2004;Lioubimtseva, 2009;Kuzmin, 2014).…”

Environmental context and adaptations of prehistoric and early historical occupation in the Southern Altai (SW Siberia–East Kazakhstan)

“…BC although some grain recorded at the Altai's archaeological sites may have been imported (Ryabogina and Ivanov 2011). Palaeobotanical investigations suggest initial cultivation of cereals (wheat, broomcorn millet and naked barley) introduced from Central Asia into Eastern Kazakhstan and the Russian Gorno Altai during the late Bronze Age (Spengler et al 2016). The better naturally irrigated mosaic mountain steppes and semi-humid river valley settings (the latter with fertile chernozemic soils) may have provided reasonable yields supplementing the principal pastoral economy at the time of the Scythian occupation.…”