Abstract

Despite its central role in early pastoral developments, including the earliest evidence for horse domestication in the Kazakh steppe, the Central Eurasian steppe is often treated in the dominant domestication models as a passive recipient of the Near Eastern domesticates. Within this framework, pastoralism is typically understood as a discrete economic transition in which hunting-based subsistence systems were progressively replaced by herding following the arrival of domestic animals. Such models obscure both the ecological complexity of the steppe and the long-term continuity of human–animal–environment interactions that structured subsistence strategies in this region. This dissertation reconceptualizes the emergence of pastoralism in the Bronze Age Central Eurasian steppe (ca. 3000–800 BC) as a process of ecological negotiation, in which newly introduced domestic animals were integrated into landscapes already structured by fine-scale environmental heterogeneity and long-standing relationships with endemic fauna. Rather than replacing earlier lifeways, pastoral systems reorganized pre-existing hunting economies, as newly introduced domesticates were integrated into landscapes structured by fine-scale ecological heterogeneity. This study examines long-term human–animal–environment interactions at the multi-period site of Koken in eastern Kazakhstan, a rare stratified settlement spanning from the Upper Paleolithic through the Bronze Age. Integrating zooarchaeological analysis, biomolecular identification (ZooMS), and high-resolution remote sensing within a landscape ecology framework, it reconceptualizes the steppe not as a uniform arid expanse, but as a mosaic of localized productive zones, or microenvironments, that concentrate resources and structure patterns of mobility, settlement, and subsistence. The dissertation consists of three interrelated projects. The first identifies and maps steppe microenvironments using machine learning classification of multispectral satellite imagery (PlanetScope and Landsat) within Google Earth Engine. Across approximately 35,000 km², this analysis demonstrates that only 3-5% of the total arid steppe is suitable for human occupation. By establishing a statistically robust spatial correlation between these mapped microenvironments and actual archaeological settlements, we demonstrate that the arid Eurasian steppe functioned not as a homogeneous grassland but as a punctuated archipelago of ecologically distinct micro-oases that provided reliable water access, higher biomass, and seasonal thermal buffering essential for human survival over millennia. This study demonstrates that occupation in the arid steppe was thus highly structured by these ecological nodes, which likely functioned as points of convergence where humans, domesticates, and wild animals interacted within shared environmental constraints. The second project develops novel collagen peptide biomarkers for the identification of saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), enabling the taxonomic resolution of highly fragmented faunal assemblages that have historically limited zooarchaeological interpretation in the steppe. Because saiga remains are morphologically difficult to distinguish from other medium-sized bovids and are predominantly identified through diagnostic cranial elements, their zooarchaeological visibility is limited, leading to a systematic underestimation of their ecological and economic significance in reconstructions of Central Eurasian subsistence systems. Building on Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), this study identifies and validates six new species-specific collagen peptide markers (COL1α1 and COL1α2 loci) through combined MALDI-ToF and LC-MS/MS analysis of modern reference specimens and archaeological material. These markers enable reliable differentiation of saiga from sympatric antelopes, cervids, and domestic taxa, overcoming the limitations of existing ZooMS reference libraries that cannot resolve antelope-level identifications in Central Asia. Application of these markers to Bronze Age assemblages from Kazakhstan and Mongolia demonstrates their accuracy against independent genetic identifications and reveals previously unrecognized saiga remains in highly fragmented contexts. By expanding the analytical visibility of wild taxa, this approach provides a critical methodological advance for the accurate reconstruction of prehistoric Eurasian economies. The third project integrates ZooMS and zooarchaeological data from Koken to reconstruct diachronic patterns of animal exploitation. The results show that while domestic taxa dominate Bronze Age assemblages, the relative importance of wild animals declines unevenly rather than disappearing. Hunting persists throughout the sequence and intensifies during the later Bronze Age. This pattern challenges models that equate pastoralism with the steady decline of wild resource use and instead reveals a dynamic restructuring of subsistence strategies within ecologically constrained landscapes. The persistence and fluctuation of hunting further indicate that long-standing ecological knowledge of endemic fauna, particularly saiga, played a critical role in shaping pastoral adaptations. In this context, saiga are best understood as a behavioral and ecological analogue for domestic sheep, providing a pre-existing framework through which similarly sized domestic bovids were successfully integrated into highly seasonal steppe environments. These findings demonstrate that pastoralism in the Eurasian steppe did not emerge as a singular economic shift or transition, but as a reorganization of existing practices within a spatially structured environment. We suggest that microenvironments provided the ecological framework for both wild and domestic animal economies, while accumulated knowledge of animal behavior enabled the integration of non-native domesticates into highly seasonal grassland systems. This dissertation frames pastoralism as a flexible and context-dependent adaptation and positions Central Asia as a critical region for understanding how resilient subsistence systems develop under conditions of environmental variability.

Committee Chair

Michael Frachetti

Committee Members

Helina Woldekiros, Christina Warinner; Tristram Kidder; Xinyi Liu

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Anthropology

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

4-28-2026

Language

English (en)

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Available for download on Thursday, April 27, 2028

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