Pasture usage by ancient pastoralists in the northern Kazakh steppe informed by carbon and nitrogen isoscapes of contemp
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Pasture usage by ancient pastoralists in the northern Kazakh steppe informed by carbon and nitrogen isoscapes of contemporary floral biomes A. R. Ventresca Miller 1,2,3
&
T. M. Bragina 4,5 & Y. A. Abil 4 & M. M. Rulyova 4 & C. A. Makarewicz 2
Received: 8 August 2017 / Accepted: 22 May 2018 # The Author(s) 2018
Abstract Identification of variation in pasture use by domesticated livestock has important implications for understanding the scale of animal husbandry and landscape use in modern and ancient societies alike. Here, we explore the influence of pasture floral composition, salinity, and water availability on the carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopic composition of plants from the steppes of Kazakhstan. Our findings demonstrate geospatially defined differences in the isotopic composition of sedge marshes, saline marshes, and meadow steppes, information which we then use to inform animal management strategies used in the past. We then examine pasture usage by ancient livestock through carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bone collagen from animals that grazed in the northern Kazakh steppe. Pasturing strategies varied according to livestock taxa, with horses exhibiting lower δ13C and δ15N values relative to cattle, sheep, and goat. We argue that horses, which are highly mobile and freely graze over pastures extending over wide areas, were grazed under an extensive pasturing system. These data suggest that the isotopic composition of contemporary vegetation communities can help inform animal management strategies used in the past. Keywords Bronze age . Sintashta . Andronovo . Kazakhstan . Livestock . Pasture
Introduction
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0660-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * A. R. Ventresca Miller [email protected] 1
Graduate School for Human Development in Landscapes, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Leibnizstr. 3, 24118 Kiel, Germany
2
Institute for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6, 24118 Kiel, Germany
3
Department of Archaeology, Stable Isotope Group, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
4
Kostanay State Pedagogical Institute, Tauelsizdik street 118, Kostanay, Kazakhstan 110000
5
Federal State Budget Scientific Institution Azov Fisheries Research Institute, 21V Beregovaya street, 344002 Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Pastoralists employ a diverse set of animal management strategies to ensure their subsistence and that of their herds. One important husbandry practice involves moving livestock to different pastures in order provide herd animals with a continuous source of fresh graze (Wright and Makarewicz 2015; Outram 2015). The spatial extent of pasturing systems and the intensity of pasture use depend on a complex intersect of ecological and social factors including seasonality, graze availability
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