Recent bioarchaeological research across many Eurasian steppe areas suggests that prehistoric pastoral communities, traditionally considered as “uniformly nomadic”, actually had mixed and diverse economies, herding strategies, social complexity and population mobility. In this context, Altai is a unique land in the Eurasian steppe for studying the variability of the economies and adaptations. The area encompasses a patchwork of diverse ecological niches (steppe, forest-steppe, lowland plains, mountains and foothills), which have different potentials for stockbreeding, crop cultivation, as well as fishing and foraging. Due to the harsh continental climate and altitudinal zonation, any migrants in Altai had to go through a serious restructuring of their life-sustaining systems to be able to adapt to the local climate and resources; e.g. pure nomadism would have been barely possible due to the paucity and sparseness of the grass landscape and thus the need to integrate other economic activities. This resulted in people of the same cultural traditions living in a variety of geographical and environmental conditions, which is particularly useful now when exploring adaptations.

We aim to develop the first systematic absolute chronology of the Altai Early Iron Age, specifically targeting the emergence and dynamics of local nomadism and its place in the Eurasian Steppe context, using AMS radiocarbon dating and multi stable isotope analysis.

Dr Svetlana Svyatko is the named researcher on the project.