Key Aspects of the Economy of the Tagar Culture Population: Main Concepts and Problems of Research Into Animal Husbandry

The authors focus on the palaeoeconomy reconstructions based on zooarcheological materials of the Early Iron Age Tagar Culture of Southern Siberia. They analyse the established concepts of the sedentary and semi-nomadic animal husbandry of the Tagar Culture population. Obviously, there are a number of significant historiographic and methodological omissions in the rationale of both concepts: the modern paradigm of the Tagar economy, based on the views formed in the first half of the 20th c. was not routinely challenged subsequently; the main sources-zooarchaeological materials from burials and settlements-yet remain unsystema-tised; the reconstructions summarise materials from various periods without differentiating the stages of the Culture or clarifying specifics of particular branches of economy at certain stages; the identified single economy model does not consider the possibility of specialization of individual local groups of the Tagar population. Based on the above, the key problems of the systematic analysis of the material complex (artefacts, faunal and anthropological remains) are formulated; the addressing of these issues will allow a more detailed reconstruction of the basic elements of economy management of the Tagar population in chronological and geographical aspects. For the modeling of animal husbandry systems, the emphasis is placed on the informativity of burial and settlement complexes. The authors point out that the use of statistics for zooarchaeological complexes from burials for reconstruction of the herd composition and justification of local pastoral specialisations is meaningless. The important role in the creation of palaeoeconomy models belongs to settlements from which only a small quantity of faunal materials have been analysed. The authors also specifically address issues related to anatomical and species definitions for the faunal collections, including the fragmental processing of materials from individual monuments and the scantily of information about their anatomical-species composition, the use of incorrect terminology, lack of justification in the identification of Ovis/Capra. As a solution to the problem of the relation between agriculture and animal husbandry in the economy, the authors consider the possibility of creating palaeodietary models for different Tagar populations, which will allow detailing the specifics of the economy forms in geographical and chronological aspects. In this regard, the study of zooarchaeological and anthropological sources and the use of the isotope analysis is exclusively important as it will yield qualitatively new information about the economy, and the role of plant and animal food in the diet of the population. A comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of materials from different types of sites will allow a balanced assessment of the role of stock-rearing and hunting, as well as agriculture in the economy of the Tagar population.

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