Author Topic: Turanian diffusion  (Read 4160 times)

90sRetroFan

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Re: Turanian diffusion
« Reply #15 on: September 19, 2021, 04:11:08 am »
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03798-4

Quote
During the Early Bronze Age, populations of the western Eurasian steppe expanded across an immense area of northern Eurasia. Combined archaeological and genetic evidence supports widespread Early Bronze Age population movements out of the Pontic–Caspian steppe that resulted in gene flow across vast distances, linking populations of Yamnaya pastoralists in Scandinavia with pastoral populations (known as the Afanasievo) far to the east in the Altai Mountains1,2 and Mongolia3. Although some models hold that this expansion was the outcome of a newly mobile pastoral economy characterized by horse traction, bulk wagon transport4,5,6 and regular dietary dependence on meat and milk5, hard evidence for these economic features has not been found. Here we draw on proteomic analysis of dental calculus from individuals from the western Eurasian steppe to demonstrate a major transition in dairying at the start of the Bronze Age. The rapid onset of ubiquitous dairying at a point in time when steppe populations are known to have begun dispersing offers critical insight into a key catalyst of steppe mobility. The identification of horse milk proteins also indicates horse domestication by the Early Bronze Age, which provides support for its role in steppe dispersals. Our results point to a potential epicentre for horse domestication in the Pontic–Caspian steppe by the third millennium bc, and offer strong support for the notion that the novel exploitation of secondary animal products was a key driver of the expansions of Eurasian steppe pastoralists by the Early Bronze Age.
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a–c, Eneolithic (a), Early Bronze Age (b) and Middle–Late Bronze Age (c) sites in the Pontic–Caspian region, showing the number of individuals with a positive dairy identification out of the total number of individuals with preserved ancient proteins for each site. Strong evidence of preservation of equine or ruminant milk protein identifiers are depicted with black animal icons; the single individual with equivocally identified casein peptides is shown with a grey icon.
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a–c, Histograms for individuals with evidence for consumption of dairy, from the Eneolithic (a), Early Bronze Age (b) and Middle and Late Bronze Age (c). PSM, peptide spectral match.
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Although we cannot offer direct insight into the question of horse riding or traction on the basis of our data, evidence for milked horses certainly makes horse domestication more likely, and may indicate that horses had a role in the spread of Yamnaya groups. The triad of animal traction, dairying and horse domestication appears to have had an instrumental role in transforming Pontic–Caspian economies and opening up the broader steppe to human habitation by the Early Bronze Age. If some or even all of these elements were present before the Bronze Age, it is only from this latter period that we witness their intensive and sustained exploitation amongst numerous groups. Although other factors will no doubt also have been important, the emergence of more mobile, pastoralist societies adapted to survival on the cold and arid steppe—where horses may have opened up snow-covered pasturage for other animals18, and milk would have provided a sustained source of protein, nutrients and fluids—was undoubtedly critical to the expansion of Bronze Age pastoralists such the Yamnaya groups.