Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint Migration and its efects on life ways and subsistence strategies of boreal hunter-fshers: Ethnoarchaeological research among the Selkup, Siberia Henny Piezonka a,∗ , Olga Poshekhonova b , Vladimir Adaev b , Aleksey Rud’ c a Institute for Pre- and Protohistory, Christian Albrechts University, Johanna-Mestorf-Strasse 2-6, 24118, Kiel, Germany b Institute of the Problems of Northern Development, Tyumen Scientific Centre of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tyumen’, Russia c Independent Researcher, Ekaterinburg, Russia ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Ethnoarchaeology Migration Settlement adaptations Hunter-fsher-reindeer herders Western Siberia Multi-species strategies ABSTRACT The article explores the role of migration as a trigger for transformations of life ways, subsistence strategies, material culture and ethnic identity in boreal hunter-fsher societies based on ethnoarchaeological evidence. Fieldwork among the Taz Selkup, a mobile hunter-fsher-reindeer herder community that migrated into the northern taiga of Western Siberia three centuries ago, provides insights into the consequences of migration into a new environmental zone. Based on a multi-disciplinary approach in dialogue with the Selkup including survey and excavation, ethnohistory, observation and interviews we are able to identify diferent factors at play in these processes, including environ- mental conditions, cultural traditions and mutual relations with other ethnic communities such as Evenks, Kets and Khanty in the surrounding regions. The results reveal a range of economic and related lifeway adaptations, including multi-species strategies and niche construction related to the uptake of reindeer husbandry in the north which are refected e.g. by the use of smoke ovens against mosquitoes to bind the reindeer to the human settlements. Another such strategy is feeding the reindeer with fsh in winter, a practice that might leave archaeologically detectable traces in the stable isotope ratios of the animal bones. Also related to reindeer herding are changes in seasonal rounds and dwelling structures, leading to the originally sunken winter houses developing into lighter, ground-level forms that are only used for one or two seasons, and to an adoption of conical tents and other tent types for temporary summer and winter dwellings. The interrelation of these processes includes adaption to new ecological conditions, cultural infuences from other groups, and mechanisms of cultural resilience, leading to the continuing development of a specifc Northern Selkup culture. Interculturality constitutes a major characteristic in the migration process, and Selkup ethnicity and ethnic self-perception are identifed as fuid categories in a dynamic spatial and temporal net of social and cultural interrelations with other groups. 1. Introduction In recent years, migration has regained importance as a research topic in archaeology. On the one hand this is due to an increasing role of an- thropologically informed approaches in understanding migration as an integral element of human cultural behavior and as an intra-societal phenomenon (e.g., Burmeister, 2000; Burmeister, 2017; Hofmann, 2016). On the other hand, rapidly evolving biomolecular methods such as stable isotope studies and aDNA analyses for the frst time enable scientifc es- timations of the degree or lack of afnity between individuals and groups on regional and supra-regional scales (e.g., Allentoft et al., 2015; Haak et al., 2015; Kristiansen, 2014). In the interpretation of this latter data, however, old pitfalls of equating patterns in the material record (“ar- chaeological cultures”) with presumed ethnically homogenous groups are partly being revived, and as a reaction, calls for interdisciplinary dialogue and new concepts of migration and mobility integrating social and an- thropological theory are gaining momentum (e.g., Eisenmann et al., 2018; Furholt, 2018; Heyd, 2017; Müller, 2013). Ethnography and ethnoarchaeology can provide insights into social practices, cultural and ethnic processes connected to migration and their possible refection in the material record, and numerous archae- ological studies are integrating such information into their concepts and interpretations (e.g., Burmeister, 2000; Cameron, 2013). There is, however, a notable lack of such integrated studies on migration in hunter-gatherer societies. While the investigation of mobility of fora- ging groups is flling libraries, actual studies of migrations in the sense of groups of people permanently relocating their focus of residence and economic activity to a diferent region are rarer and often concentrate on the colonization of formerly uninhabited areas (e.g., Funder, 2008; Kotlyakov et al., 2017; Sørensen et al., 2013). While migration https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.07.005 Received 22 January 2019; Received in revised form 24 June 2019; Accepted 4 July 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: hpiezonka@ufg.uni-kiel.de (H. Piezonka). Quaternary International 541 (2020) 189–203 Available online 06 July 2019 1040-6182/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. T