Diet of the Tagar Culture Population Based on Stable Isotope Analysis of Materials from the Podgornovo-Stage Tepsei Burial Grounds

The relative roles of animal husbandry and agriculture in the economy of the Tagar society remain a subject of scholarly debate. The relevance of this stud y is determined by the need to clarify local variants of subsistence and dietary strategies among the population of the Minusinsk Basin during the Early Iron Age. This study focuses on the reconstruction of dietary patterns among individuals associated with the Podgornovo stage of the Tagar culture based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis. The material consists of anthropological series from burial grounds of the Tepsei archaeological complex. At the Isotope Research Laboratory of the IAET SB RAS (AIsotope) well-preserved collagen was extracted from 17 samples, and mean values of δ13CVPDB (–16.9 ± 1.4 ‰) and δ15NAir (10.6 ± 1.4 ‰) were obtained. The δ15N values suggest a mixed diet with a high intake of animal protein, while the δ13C values suggest a consistent contribution of both С3- and С4- resources. Comparison with the data from the Minusinsk Basin revealed local specificity: although millet consumption, typical of the Tagar culture, was recorded, the δ15N values were lower than the regional average. This may indicate that fish played a less significant role in the diet of the population of the Tepsei complex compared with stock farming products. These results complement the archaeological evidence of the existence of mixed economic models and require further verification using a larger sample and comparison with the isotope data from the Tagar populations of different chronological stages.

Animal husbandry · C3 and C4 plants · collagen analysis · diet reconstruction · Early Iron Age · Fish consumption · millet · Minusinsk Basin · skeletal remains · stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes · subsistence strategies · Tagar culture · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Isotope Analysis in Ecology