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Reservoir Effect of Archaeological Samples from Steppe Bronze Age Cultures in Southern Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

N Shishlina ,
V Sevastyanov ,
E Zazovskaya  and
J van der Plicht
N Shishlina*
Affiliation:
State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia
V Sevastyanov
Affiliation:
Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
E Zazovskaya
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
J van der Plicht
Affiliation:
Centre for Isotope Research, Groningen University, Groningen, the Netherlands; also at Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Human and animal bone collagen from different Steppe Bronze Age cultures, including the Yamnaya, East Manych Catacomb, and Lola cultures, show large variations in δ13C and δ15N values. More positive values of δ13C and δ15N are caused by change in diet and/or a more arid climate. Human bones show reservoir effects caused by aquatic diet components. These effects can be quantified by paired dating of human bone and associated terrestrial samples. Previous research showed reservoir corrections for several cultures of the Eurasian steppes Bronze Age, leading to a revision of the local chronologies. Additional investigations showed that some paired dates do not reveal reservoir effects. Recently, our database was extended significantly with new 13C, l5N, and 14C analyses of the Lola, Krivaya, and Babino cultures. The size of the reservoir offset for the studied cultures is discussed.

Type
Reservoir Effects
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , 2014 , pp. 767 - 778
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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