Svetlana V Svyatko

New radiocarbon dates and a review of the chronology of prehistoric populations from the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia, Russia

The results are presented of a new program of radiocarbon dating undertaken on 88 human skeletons. The individuals derived from Eneolithic to Early Iron Age sites?Afanasievo, Okunevo, Andronovo (Fedorovo), Karasuk, and Tagar cultures--in the Minusinsk Basin of Southern Siberia. All the new dates have been acquired from human bone, which is in contrast to some of the previous dates for this region obtained from wood and thus possibly unreliable due to old-wood effects or re-use of the timber. The new data are compared with the existing 14C chronology for the region, thereby enabling a clearer understanding to be gained concerning the chronology of these cultures and their place within the prehistory of the Eurasian steppes.

Climatic or dietary change? Stable isotope analysis of Neolithic–Bronze Age populations from the Upper Ob and Tobol River basins

Dietary changes in the populations inhabiting southwest Siberia and northern Kazakhstan indicate concurrent changes in the economy, at the same time marking the beginnings of East–West interaction across northern Eurasia. The introduction of domestic animal species of Near Eastern origin, such as sheep and goat, dramatically changed the lives of the local population. Past palaeodietary research using stable isotope analysis has mainly focussed on pastoral populations of the Bronze Age period. It is crucial, however, to assess the diets of humans and animals from earlier periods (Neolithic/Chalcolithic) in order to understand the timing and nature of dietary change during the Bronze Age of southwest Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, in particular the possible contribution of environmental change influencing dietary shifts. In this paper, we report the results of stable isotope analysis on 55 human and 45 faunal samples from southwest Siberia (Upper Ob River) and northern Kazakhstan (Tobol River basin), ranging from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. These data, combined with published human and faunal collagen results from the region as well as new accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dating results, indicate little change in animal diet over time, but a notable change in human diet at ca. 2500 cal. BC. The data allow us to determine the time when pastoralism came to the fore, with concomitant economic differences to the local population.

First Radiocarbon Chronology for the Early Iron Age Sites of Central Kazakhstan (Tasmola Culture and Korgantas Period)

We present the first radiocarbon dates of Early Iron Age sites of central Kazakhstan (in total, 24 dates for 16 recently excavated sites). Archaeologically, the sites have been attributed to the Tasmola culture of the Saka period and later Korgantas phase of the early Hun period. The new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14 C dates suggest that the majority of analyzed Tasmola sites belong to the beginning of the 8th–5th century cal BC, while Korgantas dates to the 4th–2nd century cal BC. This corresponds with the latest archaeological data for the region; however, it is somewhat contrary to the traditional perception of the chronology of the Scythian period in central Kazakhstan. The new dates suggest the beginning of the Early Scythian period in the region in at least the late 9th or 8th century BC rather than 7th century BC according to the traditional approach.

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.