Abstract
We present here the first comprehensive archaeobotanical investigation from the prehistoric farming settlement of Chap I (1065–825 cal bce), located in a high altitude valley in the central Tien Shan mountains, Kyrgyzstan. A total of 40,651 plant remains (seeds, chaff and other plant parts) have been identified, making this archaeobotanical study the first of its kind from Kyrgyzstan to enable a wider discussion on cultivated crop taxa including diversity of varieties and morphotypes within the same crop species, along with crop cultivation and processing practices. Additionally, the analysis of wild plant taxa permits a significant interpretation of crop weeds and the surrounding landscape ecology at the site. The crop assemblage at the site is dominated by Hordeum vulgare (naked and hulled barley) varieties, consisting of thousands of individual grains and chaff fragments recovered from all analysed contexts. The other crops consist of Triticum (free-threshing and possibly glume wheats), Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn millet), Setaria italica (foxtail millet) and Pisum sativum (pea). The wild plant spectrum suggests an open landscape created by humans, dominated by water and nitrogen demanding plants that were growing in a well-watered, possibly irrigated landscape at an altitude of 2,000 m a.s.l. The weed taxa also suggest that possibly both summer and winter crops were cultivated. Finally, we provide illustrations of recovered plant remains and list crop identification criteria, aiming to facilitate future archaeobotanical research in Central Asia.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramzon S (1971) Kirgyzy i ih etnogeneticheskiye i istoriko-kulturniye svyazi. Nauka, Leningrad
Ackley B, Lamb A (2016) Identifying noxious weeds of Ohio. The Ohio State University, Columbus
Aksoy A, Dixon JM, Hale WHG (1998) Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medikus (Thlaspi bursa-pastoris L., Bursa bursa-pastoris (L.) Shull, Bursa pastoris (L.) Weber). J Ecol 86:171–186
Aldous D (1999) International turf management handbook, 1st edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Baskin CC, Baskin JM (2009) Seeds: ecology, biogeography and evolution of dormancy and germination. Transferred to digital printing. Academic Press, San Diego
Betts A, Yatoo M, Spate M et al (2019) The Northern Neolithic of the Western Himalayas: new research in the Kashmir Valley. Archaeol Res Asia 18:17–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2019.02.001
Bogaard A (2004) Neolithic farming in Central Europe: an archaeobotanical study of crop husbandry practices. Routledge, London
Bronk RC (2017) Methods for summarizing radiocarbon datasets. Radiocarbon 59(6):809–1833. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2017.108
Cappers RTJ, Neef R (2012) Handbook of plant palaeoecology. Barkuis, Groningen University Library, Groningen
Cappers RTJ, Bekker RM (2013) A manual for the identification of plant seeds and fruits. Barkhuis, Groningen
Cappers RTJ, Bekker RM, Jans JEA (2012) Digitale zadenatlas van Nederland (Digital seed atlas of the Netherlands), 2nd edn. Barkhuis, Groningen University Library, Groningen
Charles M (1998) Fodder from dung: the recognition and interpretation of dung-derived plant material from archaeological sites. Environ Archaeol 1:111–122. https://doi.org/10.1179/env.1996.1.1.111
Charles M, Filipovic D, Bogaard A (2010) Identification criteria for barley rachis: distinguishing two- from six-row and naked from hulled barley. In: Bittmann F (ed) 15th Conference of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany. Terra Nostra 2010/2, GeoUnion, Alfred-Wegener-Stiftung, Berlin, p 122
Çilingir C (2009) Crop processing in the early Bronze Age house of Ikiztepe: identification and analysis of archaeobotanical remains. Master of Science dissertation, Middle East Technical University, Ankara
Diehl MW (2017) Paleoethnobotanical sampling adequacy and ubiquity: an example from the American Southwest. Adv Archaeol Pract 5:196–205. https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2017.5
Doumani PN, Frachetti MD, Beardmore R, Schmaus TM, Spengler RN, Mar’yashev AN (2015) Burial ritual, agriculture, and craft production among Bronze Age pastoralists at Tasbas (Kazakhstan). Archaeol Res Asia 1–2:17–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2015.01.001
Duddu HSN (2014) Evolution of the domestication status of cow cockle (Vaccaria hispanica [P. Mill.] Rauschert) population. Doctoral dissertation, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
Dunseth ZC, Fuks D, Langgut D et al (2019) Archaeobotanical proxies and archaeological interpretation: a comparative study of phytoliths, pollen and seeds in dung pellets and refuse deposits at Early Islamic Shivta, Negev, Israel. Quat Sci Rev 211:166–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.03.010
eFloras (2008) Flora of China. http://www.efloras.org/flora_page.aspx?flora_id=2
Gilbert OL (1991) The ecology of urban habitats. Chapman & Hall, London
Grey TL, Eason KM, Wells L, Basinger NT (2019) Effects of temperature on seed germination of Plantago lanceolata and management in Carya illinoinensis production. Plants 8:308. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants8090308
Harris DR, Masson VM, Berezkin YE et al (1993) Investigating early agriculture in Central Asia: new research at Jeitun, Turkmenistan. Antiquity 67:324–338. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00045385
Hiebert FT, Kurbansakhatov K, Schmidt H (2003) A Central Asian village at the dawn of civilization, excavations at Anau, Turkmenistan. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia
Huang X, Oberhänsli H, von Suchodoletz H et al (2014) Hydrological changes in western Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) during the Holocene as inferred from a palaeolimnological study in lake Son Kul. Quat Sci Rev 103:134–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.09.012
Ingvason P (1969) The golden sedges of Iceland. World Crops 21:218–220
Jacomet S (2006) Identification of cereal remains from archaeological sites, 2nd edn. IPAS Basel University, Basel
Kucewicz M, Maćkiewicz K, Źróbek-Sokolnik A (2010) Selected aspects of tiny vetch [Vicia hirsuta (L.) Gray S.F.] seed ecology: generative reproduction and effects of seed maturity and seed storage on seed germination. Acta Agrobot 60:205–212. https://doi.org/10.5586/aa.2010.023
Liu X, Lister DL, Zhao Z et al (2017) Journey to the east: diverse routes and variable flowering times for wheat and barley en route to prehistoric China. PLoS One 12:e0187405. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187405
Miller NF (1993) Preliminary archaeobotanical results from the 1989 excavation at the central Asian site of Gonur Depe, Turkmenistan. Int Assoc Study Cult Cent Asia Inf Bull 19:149–163
Miller NF (1999) Agricultural development in western Central Asia in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages. Veget Hist Archaeobot 8:13–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02042837
Miller NF, Smart TL (1984) Intentional burning of dung as fuel: a mechanism for the incorporstion of charred seeds into the archaeological record. J Ethnobiol 4:15–28
Miller NF, Marston JM (2012) Archaeological fuel remains as indicators of ancient west Asian agropastoral and land-use systems. J Arid Environ 86:97–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2011.11.021
Miller NF, Zeder MA, Arter SR (2009) From food and fuel to farms and flocks: the integration of plant and animal remains in the study of the agropastoral economy at Gordion, Turkey. Curr Anthropol 50:915–924. https://doi.org/10.1086/606035
Moser BR, Shah SN, Winkler-Moser JK, Vaughn SF, Evangelista RL (2009) Composition and physical properties of cress (Lepidium sativum L.) and field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) oils. Ind Crops Prod 30:199–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2009.03.007
Motuzaite Matuzeviciute G, Abdykanova A, Kume S, Nishiaki Y, Tabaldiev K (2018) The effect of geographical margins on cereal grain size variation: case study for highlands of Kyrgyzstan. J Archaeol Sci Rep 20:400–410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.04.037
Motuzaite Matuzeviciute G, Hermes TR, Mir-Makhamad B, Tabaldiev K (2020a) Southwest Asian cereal crops facilitated high-elevation agriculture in the central Tien Shan during the mid-third millennium bce. PLoS One 15:e0229372
Motuzaite Matuzeviciute G, Tabaldiev K, Hermes T et al (2020b) High-altitude agro-pastoralism in the Kyrgyz Tien Shan: new excavations of the Chap farmstead (1065–825 cal bc). J Field Archaeol 45:29–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2019.1672128
Neef R, Cappers RTJ, Bekker RM, Boulos L (2012) Digital atlas of economic plants in archaeology. Groningen archaeological studies, vol 17. Groningen University Library, Groningen
Norman HC, Cocks PS, Galwey NW (2005) Annual clovers (Trifolium spp.) have different reproductive strategies to achieve persistence in Mediterranean-type climates. Aust J Agric Res 56:33–43. https://doi.org/10.1071/AR03236
OECD (2015) Novel food and feed safety assessment of foods and feeds derived from transgenic crops. OECD Publishing, Paris
OECD (2016) Safety assessment of transgenic organisms in the environment, vol 5. OECD Consensus Documents. OECD Publishing, Paris
Pokharia AK, Mani BR, Spate M, Betts A, Srivastava A (2018) Early Neolithic agriculture (2700–2000 bc) and Kushan period developments (ad 100–300): macrobotanical evidence from Kanispur in Kashmir, India. Veget Hist Archaeobot 27:477–491. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-017-0645-8
Reimer P, Bard E, Bayliss A et al (2013) IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal bp. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–1887. https://doi.org/10.2458/azu_js_rc.55.1694
Rudaya N, Protopopov A, Trofimova S, Plotnikov V, Zhilich S (2015) Landscapes of the ‘Yuka’ mammoth habitat: a palaeobotanical approach. Rev Palaeobot Palynol 214:1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revpalbo.2014.12.003
Rühl L, Herbig C, Stobbe A (2015) Archaeobotanical analysis of plant use at Kamennyi Ambar, a Bronze Age fortified settlement of the Sintashta culture in the southern Trans-Urals steppe, Russia. Veget Hist Archaeobot 24:413–426. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-014-0506-7
Sjöberg K, Danell K (1983) Effects of permanent flooding on Carex-Equisetum wetlands in Northern Sweden. Aquat Bot 15:275–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3770(83)90074-8
Spengler RN (2013) Botanical resource use in the Bronze and Iron Age of the Central Eurasian mountain/steppe interface: decision making in multiresource pastoral economies. Doctoral Dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis MO
Spengler RN (2015) Agriculture in the Central Asian Bronze Age. J World Prehist 28:215–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-015-9087-3
Spengler RN III (2019a) Dung burning in the archaeobotanical record of West Asia: where are we now? Veget Hist Archaeobot 28:215–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-018-0669-8
Spengler RN III (2019b) Fruit from the sands: the Silk Road origins of the food we eat. University of California Press, Oakland
Spengler RN, Willcox G (2013) Archaeobotanical results from Sarazm, Tajikistan, an Early Bronze Age Settlement on the edge: agriculture and exchange. Environ Archaeol 18:211–221. https://doi.org/10.1179/1749631413Y.0000000008
Spengler RN, Mueller NG (2019) Grazing animals drove domestication of grain crops. Nat Plants 5:656–662. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0470-4
Spengler RN, Frachetti MD, Fritz GJ (2013) Ecotopes and herd foraging practices in the steppe/mountain ecotone of Central Asia During the Bronze and Iron Ages. J Ethnobiol 33:125–147. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-33.1.125
Spengler R, Frachetti M, Doumani P, Rouse L, Cerasetti B, Bullion E, Mar’yashev A (2014a) Early agriculture and crop transmission among Bronze Age mobile pastoralists of Central Eurasia. Proc R Soc B 281(2013):3,382. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3382
Spengler RN, Frachetti MD, Doumani PN (2014b) Late Bronze Age agriculture at Tasbas in the Dzhungar Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan. Quat Int 348:147–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.03.039
Spengler RN, Miller NF, Neef R, Tourtellotte PA, Chang C (2017) Linking agriculture and exchange to social developments of the Central Asian Iron Age. J Anthropol Archaeol 48:295–308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2017.09.002
Spengler RN, de Nigris I, Cerasetti B, Carra M, Rouse LM (2018) The breadth of dietary economy in Bronze Age Central Asia: case study from Adji Kui 1 in the Murghab region of Turkmenistan. J Archaeol Sci Rep 22:372–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.03.029
Stančikaitė M, Kisielienė D, Mažeika J, Blaževičius P (2008) Environmental conditions and human interference during the 6th and 13th–15th centuries ad at Vilnius Lower Castle, east Lithuania. Veget Hist Archaeobot 17:239–250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-008-0181-7
Stevens CJ (2014) Intersite variation within archaeobotanical charred assemblages: a case study exploring the social organization of agricultural husbandry in Iron Age and Roman Britain. In: Marston JM, d’Alpoim Guedes J, Warinner C (eds) Method and theory in paleoethnobotany. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp 235–254
Tabaldiev K (2004) Poseleniya rannih kochevnikov. In: Proceedings of the second international scientific conference on the place of Turkish civilizations among the civilizations of Central Asia. Universitet centralnoi azii, Bishkek, pp 70–71
Tabaldiev K (2005) O poseleniyah rannih kochevnikov Tian-Shanya. In: Proceedings of the second international scientific conference on the place of Turkish Civilizations among the Civilizations of Central Asia. Universitet centralnoi azii, Bishkek, pp 305–310
Taylor W, Shnaider S, Abdykanova A et al (2018) Early pastoral economies along the Ancient Silk Road: biomolecular evidence from the Alay Valley, Kyrgyzstan. PLoS One 13:e0205646. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205646
Tomar S, Sharma R (2002) Fodders and feeding practices of cattle and sheep in Kashmir (India). Trop Agric Res Ext 5:48–52
United States Department of Agriculture (1950) Plant Inventory No. 140
Valamoti SM (2007) Detecting seasonal movement from animal dung: an investigation in Neolithic northern Greece. Antiquity 81(314):1,053–1,064
Valamoti SM, Charles M (2005) Distinguishing food from fodder through the study of charred plant remains: an experimental approach to dung-derived chaff. Veget Hist Archaeobot 14:528–533. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-005-0090-y
Von Baeyer M, Smith A (2018) Seeds of complexity: an archaeobotanical study of incipient social complexity at Late Chalcolithic Çadır Höyük, Turkey. Doctoral thesis, University of Connecticut, Storrs CT
Wallace M, Charles M (2013) What goes in does not always come out: the impact of the ruminant digestive system of sheep on plant material, and its importance for the interpretation of dung-derived archaeobotanical assemblages. Environ Archaeol 18:18–30. https://doi.org/10.1179/1461410313Z.00000000022
Wolff C, Plessen B, Dudashvilli AS, Breitenbach SF, Cheng H, Edwards LR, Strecker MR (2017) Precipitation evolution of Central Asia during the last 5000 years. Holocene 27:142–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683616652711
Wu X, Miller NF, Crabtree P (2015) Agro-pastoral strategies and food production on the Achaemenid frontier in Central Asia: a case study of Kyzyltepa in southern Uzbekistan. Iran 53:93–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2015.11834752
Yatoo MA, Spate M, Betts A, Pokharia AK, Shah MA (2020) New evidence from the Kashmir Valley indicates the adoption of East and West Asian crops in the western Himalayas by 4400 years ago. Quat Sci Adv 2:100,011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qsa.2020.100011
Zhou X, Yu J, Spengler RN et al (2020) 5,200-year-old cereal grains from the eastern Altai Mountains predate the trans-Eurasian crop exchange. Nat Plants 6:78–87. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0581-y
Acknowledgements
This project has received funding from European Social Fund (Project No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0002) under grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT). We would like to thank Virginija Vaitkūnienė from Vilnius University Botanical Gardens for providing access to barley reference material that helped with identification of archaeobotanical plant remains. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for very useful comments that helped to improve this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by A. Fairbairn.
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, G., Mir-Makhamad, B. & Tabaldiev, K. The first comprehensive archaeobotanical analysis of prehistoric agriculture in Kyrgyzstan. Veget Hist Archaeobot 30, 743–758 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-021-00827-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-021-00827-0