Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint VariabilityinseasonalmobilitypatternsinBronzeandIronAgeKazakhstan through cementum analysis Tekla M. Schmaus a,∗,1 ,PaulaN.DoumaniDupuy b,2 , Michael D. Frachetti b a Indiana University, Department of Anthropology, SB 130, 701 E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA b Washington University in St. Louis, Anthropology Department, CB 1114, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, M.O, 63130, USA ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Central Asia Kazakhstan Pastoralism Bronze Age Iron Age Seasonality Cementum analysis ABSTRACT Understanding seasonal mobility patterns in prehistoric pastoral groups is essential to understanding regional dynamics.Inthispaper,wepresentdataontheseasonalityofsiteuseinsoutheastKazakhstanduringtheBronze andIronAges.ThedataforthisstudycomefromthesettlementsofBegashandTasbas.Begashhaspreviously been described as a winter settlement, while Tasbas provides evidence for agricultural production and was initiallyconsideredasummersettlement.Weperformedanalysisofcementumannulationson49caprineteeth from Begash and 29 caprine teeth from Tasbas. We demonstrate that occupation at Begash was not strictly limited to winter, and that occupation at Tasbas was year-round. These results demonstrate more variation in seasonal occupation patterns than was previously expected, which indicates more complexity in mobility pat- ternsaswell.Introducingadditionalvariationandcomplexityinseasonalmovementmeansthatwewillneedto revise our models of mobile pastoral economies in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The results of this study lead to questions about what factors infuenced movement, and how variability in mobility patterns afected larger social structures and interactions between populations in Central Eurasia in prehistory. 1. Introduction In the past three decades, models of economic structure and mobi- lityinprehistoricCentralEurasiahaveundergoneaseriesofsignifcant revisions. Originally, the Soviet Marxist model held that Bronze Age (thirdtosecondmillenniumBCE)groupswereagriculturalists,andthe presence of agriculture was a necessary precondition for fully mobile pastoralists in the Iron Age (Khazanov, 1984; Klejn et al., 2012). However, Chang and Rosen demonstrated that in Iron Age southeast Kazakhstan (Semirech'ye), people were likely not mobile pastoralists, but rather were sedentary, lived in towns and practiced agriculture (Rosen et al., 2000; Chang et al., 2003; Chang, 2017). Shortly there- after,FrachettidocumentedBronzeAgemobilepastoralistcampsitesin themountainsofSemirech'ye,anddemonstratedthatitwaspossibleto document pastoralist landscapes in the region (Frachetti and Mar'yashev, 2007; Frachetti, 2008a). However, even these relatively recent models have been questioned, and the picture is changing once again. Recent research suggests that economies across prehistoric Kazakhstan were even more varied than previously assumed, which raises new questions about variation in settlement patterns and ap- proaches to mobility. There is now evidence of a range of production strategies, from horse-based pastoralism in northern Kazakhstan (Outram et al., 2009) to caprine-based agro-pastoral production in southeastKazakhstan(Rosenetal.,2000; Benecke,2003; Frachettiand Benecke, 2009; Bendrey, 2011; Frachetti, 2012; Spengler et al., 2013, 2014; Haruda, 2018). This range of production strategies is also re- fectedinconsumptionpatterns,asisotopicstudieshavedemonstrated that the diets of some mobile pastoralist groups actually included sig- nifcant quantities of millet (Lightfoot et al., 2015; Motuzaite- Matuzeviciuteetal.,2015),whileothernearbygroupsdidnotconsume millet(VentrescaMilleretal.,2014; Hanksetal.,2018).Thus,itisclear thatinordertocharacterizeagroupas“mobilepastoralists,”nuanced studies must be done to illustrate this socio-economic rubric in more detail. Giventhedocumentedvariationandevidenceformixedeconomies indiferentregions,itisimportanttodeterminetheseasonalnatureof siteusenotonlybetweenregionalcommunities,butjustasimportantly – within regional communities. Together with other lines of evidence, seasonality of occupation can be used to investigate human mobility https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.04.018 Received10June2018;Receivedinrevisedform12April2019;Accepted13April2019 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: tmschmaus@gmail.com (T.M. Schmaus). 1 Present address: Indiana University, Department of Geography, SB 120, 701E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN. 47405 USA. 2 Present address: Nazarbayev University, Sociology and Anthropology Department, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan. Quaternary International 545 (2020) 102–110 Available online 19 April 2019 1040-6182/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. T