Differing modes of animal exploitation in North-Pontic Eneolithic and Bronze Age Societies

This paper presents new results of an interdisciplinary investigation of the diet andsubsistence strategies of populations living in the North-Pontic region during theEneolithic and the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3800 BC to the 2500 BC). New organicresidue analyses of >200 sherds from five Eneolithic sites and two Early Bronze Agesettlements are presented. The molecular and stable isotope results are discussed inrelation to zooarchaeological evidence. Overall, the findings suggest that eachcommunity relied on either a hunting- or a husbandry-based subsistence strategydependent upon the ecosystem in which they settled; horses and wild animalsdominated subsistence in the forest-steppe communities in contrast to ruminanthusbandry in the steppe.