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Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions.

ABSTRACT: During the Early Bronze Age, populations of the western Eurasian steppe expanded across an immense area of northern Eurasia. Combined archaeological and genetic evidence supports widespread Early Bronze Age population movements out of the Pontic-Caspian steppe that resulted in gene flow across vast distances, linking populations of Yamnaya pastoralists in Scandinavia with pastoral populations (known as the Afanasievo) far to the east in the Altai Mountains^1,2 and Mongolia³. Although some models hold that this expansion was the outcome of a newly mobile pastoral economy characterized by horse traction, bulk wagon transport^4-6 and regular dietary dependence on meat and milk⁵, hard evidence for these economic features has not been found. Here we draw on proteomic analysis of dental calculus from individuals from the western Eurasian steppe to demonstrate a major transition in dairying at the start of the Bronze Age. The rapid onset of ubiquitous dairying at a point in time when steppe populations are known to have begun dispersing offers critical insight into a key catalyst of steppe mobility. The identification of horse milk proteins also indicates horse domestication by the Early Bronze Age, which provides support for its role in steppe dispersals. Our results point to a potential epicentre for horse domestication in the Pontic-Caspian steppe by the third millennium BC, and offer strong support for the notion that the novel exploitation of secondary animal products was a key driver of the expansions of Eurasian steppe pastoralists by the Early Bronze Age.

SUBMITTER: Wilkin S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8550948 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions

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Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions - additional files

Project description:This project explores dietary proteins in human dental calculus through shotgun proteomics. These files are in addition to those accidentally not included in the original publication, Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions . DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03798-4. Files include raw, mgf, and mzid files from the two Botai individuals: DA092 (Botai 2A), DA089 (CII(3) 30-40), and additional files from Russian sites: DA431, DA431 (Lebyazhinka 5, LEB N-0), Z333 (Khvalynsk 2, KHA2 N-12), and Z444 (Murziha 2, MUR2 N-128) as well as the blanks used in the experiments. It also inlcludes the corresponding files for DA436, as in the previous upload an under-injected sample was included as the MDF.

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