The Bronze Age of the Altai

This article presents a reconstruction of climate and landscapes of the Altai during the Bronze Age. The study was done because of a chronological gap for the sites in the Altai Mountains in the second millennium BC, whereas a continuous cultural sequence can be observed in the adjacent forest-steppe areas. A paleolimnological approach which was applied was based on comprehensive analysis of bottom sediments from eleven lakes in the Russian and Mongolian Altai (Maloe Yarovoe and Kuchuk in the Kulunda steppe, Lake Teletskoe, Tenginskoe, Balyktu-Kol, Igistu-Kel, Nizhnee Multinskoe, Karakel-Nur, Tarkhatinskoe, Khindiktig-Khol, Kanas, and Khoton-Nur) with the sediments chronologically covering the Bronze Age. The methods included palynological analysis, biome reconstruction, elemental analysis of sediment cores, and metabarcoding of sedimentary plant DNA. It was shown that climate in the Bronze Age was distinguished by significant instability. A cold and dry interval at the turn of the Early and Advanced Bronze Age (4.2–3.8 kyr BP), which was identified, was associated with weakening of the western air mass transport and negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation, as recorded in numerous paleorecords from the Northern Hemisphere. After 3.5 kyr BP, increased humidity and atmospheric precipitation, as well as expansion of forested areas, were recorded. However, the overall trend of the Late Holocene indicates a gradual aridization of the climate. It was established that the Advanced Bronze Age was not accompanied by extreme environmental conditions which could have prevented human habitation. The data do not confirm the existence of a hypothetical xerothermic “Bronze Age climatic optimum.” Thus, the absence of archaeological sites from this period likely resulted not from natural and climatic, but from cultural and historical factors

Bronze · Bronze Age · Chronology · Climate change · Holocene · Palynology · Sediment · Sedimentary rock · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Soil and Environmental Studies