ArticleNature ecology & evolution2022
Emergence and intensification of dairying in the Caucasus and Eurasian steppes.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Three thousand five hundred years of sheeppox virus evolution inferred from archaeological and codicological genomes.Science advances · 2026Article
- Horse genetics, archaeology, and the beginning of riding.Science advances · 2026Review
- Caprine dairy exploitation on the Iranian Plateau from the seventh millennium BC.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Paleo-proteomic analysis of Iron Age dental calculus provides direct evidence of Scythian reliance on ruminant dairy.PloS one · 2026Article
- Making yogurt with the ant holobiont uncovers bacteria, acids, and enzymes for food fermentation.iScience · 2025Article
- Slab Grave expansion disrupted long co-existence of distinct Bronze Age herders in central Mongolia.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Spatiotemporal reconstruction of Corded Ware and Bell Beaker burial rituals reveals complex dynamics divergent from steppe ancestry.Science advances · 2025Article
- A biomolecular perspective on mobile pastoralism and its role in wider socioeconomic connections in the Chalcolithic South Caucasus.iScience · 2025Article
- Does strain-level persistence of lactobacilli in long-term back-slopped sourdoughs inform on domestication of food-fermenting lactic acid bacteria?Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Article
- The Population History of Domestic Sheep Revealed by Paleogenomes.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Tracing horseback riding and transport in the human skeleton.Science advances · 2024Review
- Article
- Risk Assessment of AFM1 in Raw Milk and Dairy Products Produced in Armenia, a Caucasus Region Country: A Pilot Study.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- DietaryScience advances · 2024Article
- Curated cauldrons: Preserved proteins from early copper-alloy vessels illuminate feasting practices in the Caucasian steppe.iScience · 2023Article
- Descent, marriage, and residence practices of a 3,800-year-old pastoral community in Central Eurasia.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Article
- Prehistoric population expansion in Central Asia promoted by the Altai Holocene Climatic Optimum.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Paleoproteomic evidence reveals dairying supported prehistoric occupation of the highland Tibetan Plateau.Science advances · 2023Article
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34 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Archaeological and archaeogenetic evidence points to the Pontic-Caspian steppe zone between the Caucasus and the Black Sea as the crucible from which the earliest steppe pastoralist societies arose and spread, ultimately influencing populations from Europe to Inner Asia. However, little is known about their economic foundations and the factors that may have contributed to their extensive mobility. Here, we investigate dietary proteins within the dental calculus proteomes of 45 individuals spanning the Neolithic to Greco-Roman periods in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe and neighbouring South Caucasus, Oka-Volga-Don and East Urals regions. We find that sheep dairying accompanies the earliest forms of Eneolithic pastoralism in the North Caucasus. During the fourth millennium BC, Maykop and early Yamnaya populations also focused dairying exclusively on sheep while reserving cattle for traction and other purposes. We observe a breakdown in livestock specialization and an economic diversification of dairy herds coinciding with aridification during the subsequent late Yamnaya and North Caucasus Culture phases, followed by severe climate deterioration during the Catacomb and Lola periods. The need for additional pastures to support these herds may have driven the heightened mobility of the Middle and Late Bronze Age periods. Following a hiatus of more than 500 years, the North Caucasian steppe was repopulated by Early Iron Age societies with a broad mobile dairy economy, including a new focus on horse milking.
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