ИСТИНА

The formation of mobile pastoral economies becomes first time tangible during the late 4th millennium BCE. The Caucasus and the steppe zone north of it was one of the focal points of this development, but the timing and the geographical trajectories in the shift towards animal-based economies, however, are still debated. In this first synthesis of new and published data of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis we want to discuss dietary reconstructions for various Bronze Age cultural formations of the North Caucasus and the neighboring steppe as part of the development of pastoral economies (Knipper et al., 2018. P. 123-140). The studied sites are located in different environmental settings. From the archaeological record it is reasonable to anticipate different intensities and strategies of pastoral activities in the local economies. Caucasia witnessed the implementation of agro-pastoral Neolithic economies in the 7th to 5th millennium BCE as well as the emergence of new animal exploitation scenarios among them wheeled transport in the 4th millennium BCE (Reinhold et al., 2020. – in press). Consequently, adequate herd animals, a new perception of animals and enhanced transportation capacities, all prerequisites for the development of economies adapted to genuine steppe environments, have been present by that date. In our study we draw from a comprehensive bioarchaeological data of representative sets of individuals associated with different archaeological cultures and successive chronological periods covering the late 5th to 2nd millennium BCE. As part of a larger bioarchaeological study, stable isotope analysis of carbon, nitrogen, strontium and oxygen were applied to evaluate dietary pattern as proxy data for different regional and chronological subsistence practices and socio-economic in the North Caucasian steppe zone. Dietary studies offer the possibility to evaluate human economy from the perspective of food. With the shift towards a predominance of pastoral components in an economy formerly based on agriculture, the consumption of meat and animal related food, i.e. milk and milk-products, rises. Likewise, more mobile communities and animals can be expected to have wider spatial geographical ranges. This can be evaluated by using strontium and oxygen isotopes, which indicate movements in different geological settings and variations in precipitation and temperature related to movement’s indifferent altitudes. Basing on more than 400 investigated humans and animals we want to outline general trends in the economic history of Caucasian populations during the Eneolithic and Bronze. Initial studies by Shishlina (2014. P. 767-778) or Hollund et al. (2010. P. 2971-2983) disclosed considerable regional differences in the importance of animal protein components and the proportion of C3 and C4 plants in human diets, but likewise pointed to profound environmental influence on the isotope ratios. The aim of this paper is to discuss these variations in detail in a long-term perspective.