The Eurasian steppes were long viewed as peripheral to the major developments in human history. Today, however, this region has emerged as one of the most important and dynamic arenas of archaeological scholarship. This volume presents the final report of the Samara Valley Project (SVP), which, from 1995–2002, conducted intensive multi-disciplinary field research on the archaeology of late prehistoric pastoralist communities and their lifeways in the western steppes of Russia. The result is a comprehensive, and more empirically informed, understanding of social organisation, economic orientations and unique ritual practices extending from the Eneolithic period (4500 BC) through to the Late Bronze Age (1900–1200 BC). The volume successfully integrates a wide range of datasets that include: settlement and mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeological studies of human remains including stable isotopes, botanical and faunal analyses, patterns of metal production and consumption, and landscape reconstruction.
The book is divided into four parts with a total of 18 chapters. Chapter 1 provides an important regional and historical context for the SVP and reviews conventional theories regarding the emergence of late prehistoric pastoralism and debates over the ‘dependency’ of such steppe groups on cultivated cereals from neighbouring states. As noted in this chapter, many of the assumptions that were carried into the field by the SVP were subsequently unsupported by the fieldwork. What emerged from the results of the project, and research by other scholars working on the steppes since the early 1990s, is a greater awareness of the development of localised pastoralist economies that continued to make use of wild plant and animal resources rather than the use of cultivated plants obtained through trade or the integration of farming.
Chapter 2 summarises the organisation of the field campaigns with descriptions of cemeteries, settlements and seasonal campsites investigated by the project, including contextual information for 67 new radiocarbon dates. Important overviews of the economic and ethnic history of the Samara region and of previous archaeological knowledge prior to the SVP research are provided in Chapters 3 and 4 respectively. Chapter 5 contributes a very important localised palaeoecological record of climate, vegetation history and land-use change within the Lower Samara River Valley area based on palynological analysis of a sediment core from the Sharlyk swamp.
Chapter 6 contains a diachronic view of demographic and craniometric patterns based on 1350 human skeletons dating from the Eneolithic to the Bronze Age obtained from across the Samara, Orenburg and Saratov regions. These patterns are complemented, in Chapter 7, by an important review of the use of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes to examine prehistoric diet with specific discussion in relation to the examination of (agro)pastoral subsistence patterns over time. A total of 58 human skeletons dating from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age were sampled as part of the study. Comparative averages of previously published carbon and nitrogen values for domestic and wild fauna from Central Eurasia are provided. Importantly, no dietary change for the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition is perceptible in the human samples studied, nor is there evidence for the consumption of C4 plants. Chapter 8 gives the reader a detailed study of osteological and palaeopathological data from 297 human individuals dating from the Eneolithic to the Late Bronze Age from the Samara and neighbouring Middle Volga-Ural region. Human remains examined by the project were obtained from 34 different sites representing 46 different excavations. The SVP study has produced important new data on patterns relating to trauma, defleshing and disarticulation that are likely to be associated with funerary ritual practices, health and disease, and activity patterns. The study provides a wide range of information that documents changing patterns of health and activity, and more subtle clues as to the complexity of the ritual that structured the treatment of the dead.
Chapter 9 details the geoarchaeological studies that were employed at the Krasnosamarskoe sites—including both settlement and cemeteries—making an important contribution to the landscape reconstructions presented in the volume. Chapter 10 consists of a highly detailed discussion of excavations at the Krasnosamarskoe settlement with numerous colour photographs, plans and illustrations of key features encountered at the site and the artefacts recovered. There is a strong emphasis on detailed contextual information and clear descriptions of the methods employed during excavation. Chapter 11 offers an integrated discussion of Bronze Age metal production and use within the Middle Volga region. Detailed microprobe and metallographic analyses were performed on 95 objects and the full primary multi-element data are provided. Chapters 12 and 13 detail the results of pollen, macro-botanical and phytolith studies from excavations at the Krasnosamarskoe settlement and offer an excellent framework for understanding plant use and seasonal activities. Significantly, no evidence for the use of cultivated plant foods relating to Late Bronze occupation was encountered. Chapters 14–16 provide detailed discussions of faunal data collected through excavations by the SVP. The first of these chapters, in particular, offers an important study of age at death and the season of death, with an interesting examination of rituals linked to the winter sacrifice of dogs and wolves. Chapter 15 plays host to both primary and secondary archaeozoological data relating to the analysis of 22445 bone specimens recovered from the Krasnosamarskoe settlement. Chapter 16 expands on these data to offer a thorough contextual discussion of fauna and patterns related to butchery and other taphonomic processes. Chapter 17 summarises the results of excavations at the Bronze Age kurgan cemetery at Krasnosamarksoe IV; and Chapter 18 covers the survey and excavation results of five ephemeral Late Bronze Age campsites that were identified through the use of shovel-probe methods.
David Anthony and his SVP collaborators are to be congratulated for their important fieldwork, their detailed post-excavation studies and the significant energy required to bring the project to completion. The volume is attractive and well edited, and provides important new results that will be of great utility to other scholars. The UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press is also to be commended for seeing this important research through to publication in such a fine form. The SVP's high standard of research has set the bar for future programmes of field research in the Eurasian steppes.
