42
Here we present a recent case study using shotgun proteomics to
explore the range and diversity of dairying in the ancient Eurasian
steppe. To examine the time depth and geographic range of dairy use
in the steppe proteins were extracted from ancient dental calculus
(and possibly ceramics) from sites between the Neolithic and
Medieval periods. Using liquid
chromatography tandem mass
spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and annotated protein databases we
identified numerous dairy proteins from multiple sources. Our results
provide direct evidence of early ruminant milk consumption across
multiple time periods. These data provide evidence that dairy foods
from multiple species were a key part of steppe subsistence strategies
and add to our understanding of the importance of early pastoralism
across Eurasia.
Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, Emma Lightfoot,
Xinyi Liu, Martin Jones
Bioarcheology Centre, Department of Archaeology, Vilnius University.
Lithuania
ARCHAEOBOTANICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE
EARLIEST HORSE
HERDER SITE OF BOTAI IN KAZAKHSTAN
This paper presents the results of the first archaeobotanical
analysis of the Botai site in Kazakhstan where the earliest evidence
of horse domestication have been previously reported dated to the
mid. 4
th
millennium BC. The archaeobotanical results derived from
both systematic sampling and analysis of macrobotanical remains
and plant phytoliths from fifty secure archaeological contexts do not
provide any evidence of the use of domesticated plants. This
research
would suggest that the Botai populations were not a part of any wider
crop network during the 4
th
-2
nd
millennium BC. We do not exclude
the possibility that wild plant resources were exploited by the Botai
inhabitants for food. However, a relatively small seed count would
indicate that the plant foods did not constitute a substantial
component of economic life.
43
While past vegetation has been reconstructed from pollen cores,
in the Central Asia the reports of systematic flotation are rare,
especially for Chalcolithic period. In the southern Ural region a
systematic flotation has been carried out at the Yamnaya Culture
sites during the “Samara valley project” where no domesticated crop
species were recovery. The prehistoric inhabitants
of this region may
have consumed the seeds of wild plants such as
Chenopodium
(goosefoot),
Amaranthus, Brassica, Eragrostis, Polygonum, and
Galium. Attempts to find macrobotanical evidence of cultivated
cereal was also carried out at the metallurgical centres of the
Sintashta culture (Middle Bronze Age), such as Kamennyi Ambar
and Olgino located in south eastern regions of Ural mountains. The
flotation here performed by the Russian and German researchers in
the Volga-Ural steppe reported once again the presence only of wild
plant species at the site dominated by
Chenopodium sp.. The earliest
earliest cereal macro-remains in this region, consisting of wheat,
barley and millets, are coming only from the Final Bronze Age
(Andronovo horizon).
At Botai samples for the investigations of macrofossils were
taken from 50 contexts with a default sediment sample size of 40
litres. We sampled a range of identified contexts primarily
comprising of house floors, fireplaces, pit fills and burnt layers. The
contexts chosen for flotation can be divided into two groups: inside
and outside the pit house. The archaeology of the pit house can be
divided into three phases. Phase 1 represents the early occupation.
These features comprising of a layer of very thin deposit. Phase 2
consists of features associated with later use of the pit-house.
Various features interpreted as floor, pit and fireplace belong to this
later episode. The 3rd phase is a wall-fall; no samples for flotation
were taken from this phase. The features outside the pot house
consist of the pits and an external fireplace. The pits outside the pit
house have no direct stratigraphic relation with the pit-house. They
were dug especially for domestic waste purposes during or after the
occupation of the excavated house.
We designed and built a flotation machine
that used a small
pump to draw river water, filtered through a 250 micron mesh, into
an overflow unit. Into this unit, sediment samples were suspended in
44
a 2000 micron mesh to catch the heavy fraction, with the overflow
feeding into a 500 micron mesh to catch the light fraction. In this
manner, sediment from 43 separate features was floated, often
subdivided into several contexts (50 in total). In total 2006 litres of
sediments were floated from the Botai site.
Sorting and identification of archaeobotanical material took place
at the University of Cambridge in the George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory
for Bioarchaeology. Each flotation sample was sorted individually by
selecting and counting all charred seeds within the sample. All of the
retrieved flotation samples from the sites was sorted and analysed.
The archaeobotanical samples were identified using a
low-power
stereomicroscope (x6-x40, the reference collections available at the
George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory for Bioarchaeology and the Digital
Seed Atlas of the Netherland, the Atlas of Seed.
The extensive archaeobotanical investigation conducted at the
Botai resulted in no evidence of domesticated plant remains. The
recovered plants consisted mainly of wood charcoal, and charred
seed of
Chenopodium sp. (goosefoots),
Rumex sp. (docks),
Carex sp.
(sedge),
Polygonum sp. (knotweed),
Stipa sp./
Bromus sp.,) species
that were identified inside living house and could have possibly been
used for food.
Achillea sp. (yarrow),
Artemisia sp. species have both
aromatic and disinfectant properties. Archaeobotanical data are not
suggestive of a quotidian use of food plants by the Botai inhabitants.
The findings are consistent with a heavy dependence upon
animal
products in their diet with a very minor contribution of wild plant
foods.
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