The distribution of late-Quaternary woody taxa in northern Eurasia: evidence from a new macrofossil database

We present a database of late-Quaternary plant macrofossil records for northern Eurasia (from 23 degrees to 180 degrees E and 46 degrees to 76 degrees N) comprising 281 localities, over 2300 samples and over 13,000 individual records. Samples are individually radiocarbon dated or are assigned ages via age models fitted to sequences of calibrated radiocarbon dates within a section. Tree species characteristic of modern northern forests (e.g. Picea, Larix, tree-Betula) are recorded at least intermittently from prior to the last glacial maximum (LGM), through the LGM and Lateglacial, to the Holocene, and some records locate trees close to the limits of the Scandinavian ice sheet, supporting the hypothesis that some taxa persisted in northern refugia during the last glacial cycle. Northern trees show differing spatio-temporal patterns across Siberia: deciduous trees were widespread in the Lateglacial, with individuals occurring across much of their contemporary ranges, while evergreen conifers expanded northwards to their range limits in the Holocene. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

History of several mistakes: on differences between Lev Gumilev and Eurasians

This article challenges prevalent views about Gumilev’s relation to classic Eurasianism. On the basis of previously unavailable correspondence and interviews, it is argued that Lev Gumilev had substantial degree of affinity with the original Eurasian movement understood as a scholarly tradition. This was manifested both in his personal contacts with some of its key members, and in his scholarly work on the nomad history, which remained Eurasian in its spirit. However, the most significant departure from Eurasianism, under-appreciated by most scholars, was his theory of ethnogenesis, which attempted to establish a new naturalistic paradigm for study of history.

Stable Isotope Dietary Analysis of Prehistoric Populations from the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia, Russia: A new chronological framework for the introduction of millet to the eastern Eurasian steppe

We report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of 354 human and faunal samples from five archaeological cultures of the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia – Afanasyevo, Okunevo, Andronovo, Karasuk and Tagar (ca. 2700–1 BC) – a key location in Eurasia due to its position on a northern corridor linking China and central Eurasia. The results indicate that the diet of Eneolithic to Middle Bronze Age (Afanasyevo to Andronovo) populations was primarily C3-based, with C4 plants only becoming an important component of the diet in the Late Bronze Age Karasuk and Early Iron Age Tagar cultures. Freshwater fish seems to have been an important constituent of the diets in all groups. The findings constitute the earliest concrete evidence for the substantial use of millet in the eastern Eurasian steppe. We propose that it was probably introduced from Northwestern China during the Karasuk culture at the start of the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500 BC. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for the nature of pastoralist economies on the steppes.

Living in the Landscape: Essays in Honour of Graeme Barker

This edited volume reflects on the multitude of ways by which humans shape and are shaped by the natural world, and how Archaeology and its cognate disciplines recover this relationship. The structure and content of the book recognize Graeme Barker’s pioneering contribution to the scientific study of human-environment interaction, and form a secondary dialectic between his many colleagues and past students and the academic vista which he has helped define. The volume comprises 22 thematic papers, arranged chronologically, each a presentation of front-line research in their respective fields. They mirror the scope of Barker’s legacy through a focus on transitions in the human-environment relationship, how they are enacted and perceived. The assembled chapters illustrate how climate, demographic, subsistence, social and ecological change have affected cultures from the Palaeolithic to Historical, from North Africa and West-Central Eurasia to Southeast Asia and China. They also chronicle the innovations and renegotiated relations that communities have devised to meet and exploit the many shifting realities involved with Living in the Landscape.

Timing and climate forcing of volcanic eruptions for the past 2,500 years

Volcanic eruptions contribute to climate variability, but quantifying these contributions has been limited by inconsistencies in the timing of atmospheric volcanic aerosol loading determined from ice cores and subsequent cooling from climate proxies such as tree rings. Here we resolve these inconsistencies and show that large eruptions in the tropics and high latitudes were primary drivers of interannual-to-decadal temperature variability in the Northern Hemisphere during the past 2,500 years. Our results are based on new records of atmospheric aerosol loading developed from high-resolution, multi-parameter measurements from an array of Greenland and Antarctic ice cores as well as distinctive age markers to constrain chronologies. Overall, cooling was proportional to the magnitude of volcanic forcing and persisted for up to ten years after some of the largest eruptive episodes. Our revised timescale more firmly implicates volcanic eruptions as catalysts in the major sixth-century pandemics, famines, and socioeconomic disruptions in Eurasia and Mesoamerica while allowing multi-millennium quantification of climate response to volcanic forcing.

Genomic and archaeological evidence suggest a dual origin of domestic dogs

The geographic and temporal origins of dogs remain controversial. We generated genetic sequences from 59 ancient dogs and a complete (28x) genome of a late Neolithic dog (dated to ~4800 calendar years before the present) from Ireland. Our analyses revealed a deep split separating modern East Asian and Western Eurasian dogs. Surprisingly, the date of this divergence (~14,000 to 6400 years ago) occurs commensurate with, or several millennia after, the first appearance of dogs in Europe and East Asia. Additional analyses of ancient and modern mitochondrial DNA revealed a sharp discontinuity in haplotype frequencies in Europe. Combined, these results suggest that dogs may have been domesticated independently in Eastern and Western Eurasia from distinct wolf populations. East Eurasian dogs were then possibly transported to Europe with people, where they partially replaced European Paleolithic dogs.

The Great Transition:Climate, disease and society in the late-medieval world

In the fourteenth century the Old World witnessed a series of profound and abrupt changes in the trajectory of long-established historical trends. Trans-continental networks of exchange fractured and an era of economic contraction and demographic decline dawned from which Latin Christendom would not begin to emerge until its voyages of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century. In a major new study of this 'Great Transition', assessment is made of the contributions of commercial recession, war, climate change,and eruption of the Black Death to a far-reaching reversal of fortunes which spared no part of Eurasia. A wealth of new historical, palaeoecological and biological evidence are synthesised, including estimates of national income, reconstructions of past climates. and genetic analysis of DNA extracted from the teeth of plague victims, to provide a fresh account of the creation, collapse and realignment of western Europe's late-medieval commercial economy.