Title The integration of millet into the diet of Central Asian populations in the third millennium BC /
Authors Motuzaitė Matuzevičiūtė, Giedrė ; Ananyevskaya, Elina ; Sakalauskaitė, Jorūnė ; Soltobaev, Orozbek ; Tabaldiev, Kubatbek
DOI 10.15184/aqy.2022.23
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Is Part of Antiquity.. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 2022, vol. 96, no. 387, p. 560-574.. ISSN 0003-598X. eISSN 1745-1744
Keywords [eng] Bronze Age ; C 4 plants ; Central Asia ; human diet ; Kyrgyzstan ; stable isotope analysis
Abstract [eng] Stable isotope analyses demonstrate that C 4 plants played an important dietary role in Eurasian prehistory. Uncertainty remains, however, about when and how crops were integrated into the diet of Central Asian populations. Here, the authors present δ 13 C and δ 15 N stable isotope analysis of human and animal bone collagen from Kyrgyzstan, revealing C 4 plant—likely broomcorn millet—consumption in the third millennium BC. Combining this evidence with AMS radiocarbon dating and animal collagen peptide fingerprinting demonstrates that broomcorn millet was consumed by humans and animals during the earliest episodes of the westward spread of this crop plant. The results contribute to debates about the timing and means by which domesticated millets were dispersed across Eurasia.
Published Cambridge : Cambridge University Press
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2022
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