Grain impressions in ceramic vessels illustrate the extent of 1st millennium bc agriculture across the northern Central Asian steppe
Endo E. Kaliyeva Z. Utubayev Z. Kasenova A.D. Suyundikova M. Onggaruly A. Spengler R. Shoda S.
March 2026Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
2026#35Issue 2363 - 375 pp.
The Syr and Amu Darya deltas and the littoral zone of the eastern Aral Sea, from Khorezm to Kyzylorda, have attracted the attention of archaeologists for nearly a century. Since the well-known Tolstov expeditions, archaeologists have discussed the establishment of early defensive architecture and elaborate irrigation systems on the periphery of the hyper-arid Kyzyl Kum Desert. Scholars have argued over whether the ancient people in this region during the 1st mill. bc, which are often culturally ascribed to the Saka, were more nomadic or sedentary and what their political organization looked like. Thus far, archaeobotanical investigations in this region have been lacking, limiting discussions about cultural adaptation, social orders, and the dispersal routes for domesticated plants and animals. In this study, we provide the first evidence for both Hordeum vulgare (barley) and Panicum miliaceum/Setaria italica (millets) cultivation in this key cultural region, dating to the first half of the 1st mill. bc. We identified barley and millet impressions on ceramics from all sites that we studied in the region, including ceramics that archaeologists classify as both Saka and Chirik-Rabat. We argue that the ubiquity of these finds indicates a greater prominence of farming practices across the steppe ecozone than scholars have previously recognized.
Agropastoralism , Central Asian steppe , Ceramics , Kazakhstan , Pottery impressions , Summer-sown millet
Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи
Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies, Meiji University, Tokyo, 101-8301, Japan
Margulan Institute of Archaeology, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan
Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, 07745, Germany
Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Nara, 630-8577, Japan
BioArCh, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
Center for Obsidian and Lithic Studies
Margulan Institute of Archaeology
Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution Research Group
Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties
BioArCh
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026