Testing subsistence in the medieval lower Syr-Darya through an archaeobotanical and stable isotope approach: a pilot study

This study provides a preliminary assessment of the subsistence base and possible dietary patterns of communities along the lower Syr-Darya River (modern-day Kazakhstan) in Central Asia from the fourth century BCE to the eighteenth century CE, with a deep focus on the medieval period, particularly attention to the Antiquity and Mongol periods. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of animal bone collagen (fourth-second centuries BCE and twelfth-fifteenth centuries CE) and human bone collagen (twelfth-fifteenth centuries CE) were combined with archaeobotanical evidence (fourth century BCE to eighteenth century CE) and published palaeoenvironmental data to examine subsistence strategies in these desert-oasis settings. This research challenges several hypotheses previously proposed by scholars, including Aral regressions in Antiquity due to intensive agriculture and irrigation (the second half of the first millennium BCE) and the shift to pastoralism after the Mongol Conquest (the thirteenth to fifteenth century CE). The isotope data further suggest that livestock diets were predominantly based on C 3 resources, while elevated herbivore δ 15 N values may reflect aridity, soil salinization, or grazing and foddering in nitrogen-enriched environments. Human δ 15 N values from Kyshkala are consistent with substantial animal-protein consumption, although the specific dietary sources of this enrichment remain uncertain. By providing some of the first isotope data for fish remains from the Syr Darya region, this study establishes a preliminary ecological baseline for future reconstructions of human diet in Mongol and post-Mongol Central Asia. Overall, this pilot study demonstrates the potential of integrating archaeobotanical and stable isotope evidence to critically evaluate existing models of subsistence change. Future research should apply this approach to larger, systematically sampled datasets to test these preliminary interpretations at a regional scale.