Dietary ¹⁴C reservoir effects and the chronology of prehistoric burials at Sakhtysh, central European Russia

Abstract

We present the first robust radiocarbon (¹⁴C) chronology for prehistoric burial activity at Sakhtysh, in European Russia, where nearly 180 inhumations attributed to Lyalovo and Volosovo pottery‐using hunter‐gatherer‐fishers represent the largest known mortuary populations of these groups. Past attempts at ¹⁴C dating were restricted by poor preservation and limited understanding of diet and dietary ¹⁴C reservoir effects (DREs). We obtained 32 new AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) ¹⁴C dates on human petrous bones. Dietary stable isotopes (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) for all AMS‐dated human samples allow us to propose a novel DRE correction model, using differences in ¹⁴C, δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N from bones and teeth of the same individuals to predict DREs of up to c.900 ¹⁴C years. Our chronological model for 40 individuals dates Lyalovo burials to the early 5^th millennium cal BC, and Volosovo burials to the mid‐4^th to early 3^rd millennium. It reveals a previously unrecognised shift in the Volosovo subsistence economy at c.3300 cal BC, coinciding with a reorientation of trade networks, and shows that the last burial at Sakhtysh was the only one in a crouched position, which coincided with the beginning of Fatyanovo practices, the regional expression of the Yamnaya/Corded Ware expansion.