 | A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes: The Samara Valley Project Subjects: Bronze age -- Russia (Federation) -- Samara Region; Samara Valley Project; Srubna culture -- Russia (Federation) -- Samara Region; Andronovo culture -- Russia (Federation) -- Samara Region; Steppe archaeology -- Russia (Federation) -- Samara Region; Pasto; The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a US-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002. It explores the changing organization and subsistence resources of pastoral steppe economies from the Eneolithic (4500 BC) through the Late Bronze Age (1900-1200 BC) across a steppe-and-river valley landscape in the middle Volga region, with particular attention to the role of agriculture during the unusual episode of sedentary, settled pastoralism that spread across the Eurasian steppes with the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures (1900-1200 BC). Three astonishing discoveries were made by the SVP archaeologists: agriculture played no role in the LBA diet across the region, a surprise given the settled residential pattern; a unique winter ritual was practiced at Krasnosamarskoe involving dog and wolf sacrifices, possibly related to male initiation ceremonies; and overlapping spheres of obligation, cooperation, and affiliation operated at different scales to integrate groups defined by politics, economics, and ritual behaviors. David W. Anthony is a professor and the chair of the anthropology department at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. He is the author of the bestselling book The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Dorcas R. Brown is a research associate in anthropology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. Aleksandr A. Khokhlov is the chair of the Anthropological Laboratory and an associate professor at the Volga State Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities in Samara, Russia. Pavel F. Kuznetsov is the director of the Museum of the Volga Region and an associate professor at the Volga State Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities in Samara, Russia. Oleg D. Mochalov is the rector of the Volga State Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities in Samara, Russia. |
