Bronze Age Human Communities in the Southern Urals Steppe: Sintashta-Petrovka Social and Subsistence Organization

BRONZE AGE HUMAN COMMUNITIES IN THE SOUTHERN URALS STEPPE: SINTASHTA-PETROVKA SOCIAL AND SUBSISTENCE ORGANIZATION by Igor V. Chechushkov B.A. (History), South Ural State University, 2005 Candidate of Sciences (History), Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2013 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2018 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Igor V. Chechushkov It was defended on April 4, 2018 and approved by Dr. Francis Allard, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Dr. Loukas Barton, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh Dr. Marc Bermann, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Robert D. Drennan, Distinguished Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Igor V. Chechushkov 2018 iii BRONZE AGE HUMAN COMMUNITIES IN THE SOUTHERN URALS STEPPE: SINTASHTA-PETROVKA SOCIAL AND SUBSISTENCE ORGANIZATION Igor V. Chechushkov, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2018 Why and how exactly social complexity develops through time from small-scale groups to the level of large and complex institutions is an essential social science question. Through studying the Late Bronze Age Sintashta-Petrovka chiefdoms of the southern Urals (cal. 2050–1750 BC), this research aims to contribute to an understanding of variation in the organization of local communities in chiefdoms. It set out to document a segment of the Sintashta-Petrovka population not previously recognized in the archaeological record and learn about how this segment of the population related to the rest of the society. The Sintashta-Petrovka development provides a comparative case study of a pastoral society divided into sedentary and mobile segments. Subsurface testing on the peripheries of three Sintashta-Petrovka communities suggests that a group of mobile herders lived outside the walls of the nucleated villages on a seasonal basis. During the summer, this group moved away from the village to pasture livestock farther off in the valley, and during the winter returned to shelter adjacent to the settlement. This find- ing illuminates the functioning of the year-round settlements as centers of production during the summer so as to provide for herd maintenance and breeding and winter shelter against harsh environmental conditions. The question of why individuals chose in this context to form mutually dependent relationships with other families and thus give up some of their independence can be answered with a combination of two necessities: to remain a community in a newly settled ecological niche and to protect animals from environmental risk and theft. Those who were skillful at managing communal construction of walled villages and protecting people from military threats became the most promi- nent members of the society. These people formed the core of the chiefdoms but were not able to accumulate much wealth and other possessions. Instead, they acquired high social prestige that could even be transferred to their children. However, this set of relationships did not last longer than 300 years. Once occupation of the region was well established the need for functions served by elites disappeared, and centralized chiefly communities disintegrated into smaller unfortified villages. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... xiii 1.0 SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND SOURCES OF POWER AMONG EARLY COMPLEX SOCI- ETIES: SETTING A COMPARATIVE APPROACH ....................................................................1 1.1 HOUSEHOLDS, COMMUNITIES, AND POWER..........................................................5 1.2 EARLY STEPPE ADAPTATION, PASTORALISM, AND FORMING OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY ............................................................................................................8 1.3 THE INNER EURASIAN STEPPES IN THE BRONZE AGE...........................................11 1.4 THE BRONZE AGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURES AND CHRONOLOGY ...............18 1.5 THE RESEARCH REGION: CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT .......................................23 1.6 A CASE STUDY: THE KARAGAILY-AYAT RIVER VALLEY ............................................24 1.7 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ��28 2.0 OUTSIDERS? CULTURAL REMAINS OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF THE BRONZE AGE SET- TLEMENTS IN THE KARAGAILY-AYAT RIVER VALLEY ............................................................31 2.1 STUDYING CULTURAL REMAINS OUTSIDE THE WALLS ��39 2.1.1 Soil Characteristics and Distribution of Cultural Layers near Kamennyi Ambar .......41 2.1.2 Cultural Materials near Kamennyi Ambar Exposed by the Test Pits ........................49 2.1.3 Cultural Deposits of the Late Bronze Age North of the Wall ��60 2.1.4 Collection of Arfifacts from the Cultural Layers near Kamennyi Ambar ....................63 2.1.5 Results of Geophysics ..............................................................................................68 2.1.6 Geochemical Analysis of Soils around Kamennyi Ambar .........................................70 2.1.7 Analysis of Faunal Remains .....................................................................................89 2.1.8 Botanical Remains ....................................................................................................91 v 2.2 INTERPRETATION OF THE CULTURAL LAYER NEAR KAMENNYI AMBAR ..............93 2.3 CULTURAL LAYERS NEAR KONOPLYANKA AND ZHURUMBAY ..............................104 2.4 SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................115 3.0 LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN THE LATE BRONZE AGE ...................................................117 3.1 DEMOGRAPHY AND ITS DYNAMICS THROUGH TIME .......................................117 3.1.1 14C Modeled Age of the Occupation Duration at Kamennyi Ambar .........................117 3.1.2 Demography of the Local Communities in the Valley of Karagaily-Ayt ..................119 3.2 BUILDING A SETTLEMENT .......................................................................................137 3.2.1 Reconstruction of an Enclosure ..............................................................................137 3.2.2 Estimation of Labor Force and Effort ......................................................................142 3.2.3 Wealth Differentiation Between the Households ....................................................145 3.3 COMPARING THE SETTLEMENTS ..........................................................................150 3.4 SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................152 4.0 LIFE-STYLES AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN THE LATE BRONZE AGE ..............154 4.1 PREDICTING A SETTLEMENT: HOW TO FIND THE BEST SPOT? .....................154 4.1.1 Local Climate and Wind Prediction .........................................................................154 4.1.2 Local Landscapes and Hydrology ..........................................................................161 4.1.3 Local Landscape and Visibility as a Defensive Measure ........................................164 4.1.4 Summary of Environmental Models: Local Environments, Defensibility, and Niche Construction ....................................................................................................................170 4.2 ANSWERING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS ........................................................175 4.3 THE SINTASHTA-PETROVKA LOCAL COMMUNITY: ALL PIECES COME TO- GETHER ...........................................................................................................................179 4.3.1 Outside and Inside the Walls ..................................................................................179 4.3.2 Social Complexity and Social Organization of the Sintashta-Petrovka Chiefdom ........ 182 4.4 DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...............................................................184 APPENDIX A .............................................................................................................................186 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................187 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Cores with the attributes of cultural layers near Kamennyi Ambar ��46 Table 2.2 Mean values of elements and their relative differences ..............................................85 Table 2.3 Faunal remains from Kamennyi Ambar........................................................................90 Table 2.4 Age composition and seasons of slaughtered animals ................................................90 Table 2.5 Counts of plant macro-remains from the tests pits near Kamennyi Ambar ..................91 Table 2.6 Ubiquity of plant macro-remains from the tests pits near Kamennyi Ambar ................92 Table 2.7 Counts and densities of artifacts yielded by the stratigraphic tests near Kamennyi Ambar ��94

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