Bryan K. Hanks

Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe

Despite decades of research across multiple disciplines, the early history of horse domestication remains poorly understood. On the basis of current evidence from archaeology, mitochondrial DNA, and Y-chromosomal sequencing, a number of different domestication scenarios have been proposed, ranging from the spread of domestic horses out of a restricted primary area of domestication to the domestication of numerous distinct wild horse populations. In this paper, we reconstruct both the population genetic structure of the extinct wild progenitor of domestic horses, Equus ferus, and the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppes by fitting a spatially explicit stepping-stone model to genotype data from >300 horses sampled across northern Eurasia. We find strong evidence for an expansion of E. ferus out of eastern Eurasia about 160 kya, likely reflecting the colonization of Eurasia by this species. Our best-fitting scenario further suggests that horse domestication originated in the western part of the Eurasian steppe and that domestic herds were repeatedly restocked with local wild horses as they spread out of this area. By showing that horse domestication was initiated in the western Eurasian steppe and that the spread of domestic herds across Eurasia involved extensive introgression from the wild, the scenario of horse domestication proposed here unites evidence from archaeology, mitochondrial DNA, and Y-chromosomal DNA.

Weaning practices among pastoralists: New evidence of infant feeding patterns from Bronze Age Eurasia

OBJECTIVES This paper investigates infant feeding practices through stable carbon (δ13 C) and nitrogen (δ15 N) isotopic analyses of human bone collagen from Kamennyi Ambar 5, a Middle Bronze Age cemetery located in central Eurasia. The results presented are unique for the time period and region, as few cemeteries have been excavated to reveal a demographic cross-section of the population. Studies of weaning among pastoral societies are infrequent and this research adds to our knowledge of the timing, potential supplementary foods, and cessation of breastfeeding practices. MATERIALS AND METHODS Samples were collected from 41 subadults (<15 years) and 27 adults (15+ years). Isotopic reference sets from adult humans as well as faunal remains were utilized as these form the primary and complementary foods fed to infants. RESULTS Slight shifts in δ13 C and δ15 N values revealed that weaning was a multi-stage process (breastfeeding, weaning, and complete cessation of nursing) that began at 6 months of age, occurred over several years of early childhood, and was completed by 4 years of age. DISCUSSION Our results indicate that weaning was a multi-stage process that was unique among late prehistoric pastoralist groups in Eurasia that were dependent on milk products as a supplementary food. Our discussion centers on supporting this hypothesis with modern information on central and east Eurasian herding societies including the age at which complementary foods are introduced, the types of complementary foods, and the timing of the cessation of breastfeeding. Integral to this work is the nature of pastoral economies and their dependence on animal products, the impact of complementary foods on nutrition and health, and how milk processing may have affected nutrition content and digestibility of foods. This research on Eurasian pastoralists provides insights into the complexities of weaning among prehistoric pastoral societies as well as the potential for different complementary foods to be incorporated into infant diets in the past.

Investigating Biogenic Versus Diagenetic Trace Element Incorporation in Archaeological Mineralized Tissues with LA-ICP-MS

In this chapter, we develop a method employing combined SEM-EDS and LA-ICP-MS analysis of mineralized tissue (bone apatite) to quantify trace element concentrations. We apply this method to bone and tooth samples from the Kammenyi Ambar 5 cemetery (Russia) to determine whether a trace element signal resulting from working of Arsenical Bronze can be distinguished from post-burial uptake of trace elements. Using raster mapping of bone and tooth cross-sections, we demonstrate that while some elements show a pattern consistent with post-burial uptake, other elements including arsenic appear to reflect uptake related to life activities including Bronze working. We review mechanisms by which trace elements may find their way into bone and tooth structure to explain these differences in incorporation pathway.

Soviet Period Air Photography and Archaeology of the Bronze Age in the Southern Urals of Russia

This chapter examines the use of air photography during the Soviet Period and the utilisation of this imagery for archaeological research. A detailed case study is provided on the Southern Ural Mountains region of Russia where archaeologists focusing on the Middle to Late Bronze Age (2100–1500 BC) have utilised black-and-white air photography to identify numerous archaeological sites ranging from the Bronze Age to the medieval period. In recent years, the integration of air photography, geophysical prospection and stratigraphic excavation has produced important insights into the spatial characteristics and diachronic phasing of prehistoric settlement and cemetery patterning. These successful research programmes provide a valuable model for similar field programmes being conducted throughout the territories of the Russian Federation and other regions of the world.

Metals, Society, and Economy in the Late Prehistoric Eurasian Steppe

This chapter builds on a previous publication by Hanks and Doonan (2009) that reviewed scholarship of early metallurgy in the central Eurasian steppe zone and presented recent field research on the development of the Bronze Age Sintashta culture (2100–1700 cal. BC) situated in the southern Ural Mountains of the Russian Federation. This chapter provides a revised discussion of these issues and outlines some of the important challenges that remain to be overcome in developing better understandings of the social and economic context of metal production, trade, and use. Additionally, a new section on recent field research at the Sintashta settlement site of Stepnoye and its local catchment zone are provided in the second half of the chapter. Since 2007, our collaborative field research has aimed to develop a better understanding of early mining, metallurgy, and socioeconomic change in the north-central steppe region. This has been accomplished through the application of theoretical and methodological approaches that highlight the unique characteristics of early mining communities, microregional resources, and the nature of local, in addition to long-distance, trade relationships.

Life in the fast lane: Settled pastoralism in the Central Eurasian Steppe during the Middle Bronze Age

We tested the hypothesis that the purported unstable climate in the South Urals region during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) resulted in health instability and social stress as evidenced by skeletal response.

The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia

The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia—consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC—and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia. One Sentence Summary Genome wide ancient DNA from 357 individuals from Central and South Asia sheds new light on the spread of Indo-European languages and parallels between the genetic history of two sub-continents, Europe and South Asia.

Enclosing the Neolithic World: A Vinca Culture Enclosed and Fortified Settlement in the Balkans

Interpretations of prehistoric enclosures worldwide have varied from those that see the primary role of enclosures as defensive features to others that explore the symbolic, ritual, social, and ideological dimensions of separating space into an inside, an outside, and an in-between. Such evidence and interpretative accounts are inevitably linked to wider anthropological discussions on modes of social interaction and reproduction in the past, whether altruistic or predatory, and evolutionary narratives regarding changes in the level of intergroup violence over the course of human history. Growing evidence indicates that many Neolithic settlements in Europe were enclosed by a complex system of ditches, ramparts, and palisades. We present a case study from the central Balkans at the Neolithic Vinča culture site of Oreškovica-Selište in Serbia, dated to the last centuries of the sixth millennium BC, where recent geophysical surveys, stratigraphic excavation, and accelerator mass spectrometry dating document the existence of an early enclosed settlement with multiple enclosure features. We interpret these features as defensive and discuss the social dynamics that led to the founding and abandonment of this short-lived occupation in the context of other contemporaneous settlements in the Balkans.

Reply to Forster et al.: Quantifying demic movement and local recruitment in the spread of horse domestication

Forster et al. (1) claim that we (2) have misrepresented their publication “Mitochondrial DNA and the origins of the domestic horse” (3). In our introduction we state “…, the multiple-origins scenario is commonly invoked to account for the large number of female lineages in the domestic horse gene pool, citing the paper by Jansen …

New Approaches to the Study and Interpretation of Ancient Pastoralists and Their Landscapes

Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia, the new book by Michael Frachetti, is a perfect example of what is emerging as a completely new generation of international collaborative research in the steppe region, one that emphasizes the application of new theoretical concepts and methodological field approaches to identifying and explaining social, economic, and political change among early steppe populations. Such collaborative developments have been steadily increasing since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the Eurasian steppe region is emerging as one of the most promising new arenas for archaeological research. Frachetti’s book focuses specifically on Bronze Age (3000– 1000 BCE) developments in Central Asia and includes invaluable information from his own recent field research in the Dzhungar Mountains and the Semirech’ye region of Kazakhstan. The broader concepts and theories discussed within the book have been developed by the author over a 10-year period while conducting ethnographic and archaeological research on mobile pastoralism in a variety of locations, including Finland, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, and northeastern China. This varied experience lends an important comparative framework to the author’s knowledge and situates his discussion of Bronze Age Central Asia within a wider, more effective anthropological treatment of mobile pastoralism. This is initiated in the introductory chapter, where Frachetti identifies several key questions and conceptual problems linked to the Central Asian Bronze Age, such as the emergence of mobile pastoralism and “nomadism,” the spread of IndoEuropean and Indo-Aryan languages, the use of horse-drawn chariots and horse-riding technology, widespread distributions of metal production, and what are understood to have been unprecedented levels of interaction and trade interregionally. Detailed discussions of these issues also have appeared in other recent publications on the Eurasian Bronze Age. Frachetti’s book importantly adds to a growing literature on this time period and region within world prehistory (see also Anthony 2007; Kohl 2007; Koryakova and Epimakhov 2007). Chapter 1 tackles persistent problems tied to conventional understandings of pastoralism and archaeological “cultures” within Eurasian prehistory. The author highlights the significance of landscape and social geographies and how both physical and social environments structure the nature of interaction between pastoralist groups. This view emphasizes the importance of not only seasonal movements but also relationships to landscapes through the burial of the dead, the creation of rock art, and complex social and economic interactions—many of which are shaped through local scales of mobility and connectivity rather than larger macroscale processes. Chapter 2 focuses on the main archaeological characteristics of the Central Asian Bronze Age that have emerged from Soviet and post-Soviet field research. As discussed by Frachetti, one of the main problems connected to this evidence is the use of the Andronovo culture terminology to define a widespread pattern of archaeological features (pp. 32–33). The Andronovo culture is traditionally broken down into several subregional variants (e.g., Alakul’, Fedorovo, etc.); however, simply lumping these into a broader encompassing terminology is not a substitute for developing better models of understanding for the spread of material culture regionally and how this relates to processes of social interaction and exchange. Unfortunately, scholars have often argued for migration as a key factor. In contrast, Frachetti offers a new explanatory framework by emphasizing the role of pastoralist economies and the intensification of herding strategies that brought about greater intraregional mobility and interaction. This model is supported through a detailed discussion of archaeological evidence such as burial monuments, social organization, metallurgy, and ceramics within the Central Asian region and how such patterning reflects a montage of pastoralist groups that interacted, shared, and contributed to the emergence and development of Bronze Age life in the steppe. Chapter 3 offers detailed ecological and environmental data connected with the Central Asian steppe zone. As Frachetti suggests (pp. 74–76), the collection of such data is imperative for developing stronger models for interpreting mobile pastoralist and agropastoralist developments and adaptation strategies to changing climate conditions over time. The stronger human-environment perspective in this chapter also highlights the steppe region as a mosaic of different zones. These are examined through several case studies that portray the variability of steppe soils and flora for pastoralist and agropastoralist exploitation strategies. Chapter 4 extends on the broader discussion in chapter 3 to focus more specifically on the regional environment in southeastern Kazakhstan and explores the utility of using regional ethnographic information in order to model ancient landscapes. One of the important themes noted is the nature of political and economic integration that structured contexts of interaction between pastoralist populations and between mobile pastoralists and agropastoralist groups. The role of mobile pastoralists especially is shown to have factored historically in how goods were moved through the region and how trade, gifting, and tribute practices contributed to the formation of complex socioeconomic and political networks.