Tairov A.D. Cattle Breeding of the Southern Trans-Urals Population in the Early Iron Age
Aleksandr D. Tairov, Doctor of Sciences (History), Director of the Scientific and Educational Center for Eurasian Studies, South Ural State University (National Research University), Prosp. im. V.I. Lenina, 76, 454080 Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation
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Abstract. The research aims to elaborate on the cattle breeding model of the Early Iron Age populations from the Southern Trans-Urals forest-steppe and steppe. The economy of the Trans-Urals Bashkirs of the 18th – 19th centuries can serve as a model for the forest-steppe Southern Trans-Urals population of the period. Pastoralists lead the semi-nomadic way of life with almost year-round pasture keeping of cattle. While maintaining permanent winter settlements, the Bashkirs migrated seasonally in spring, summer, and autumn across grazing lands, relying on natural forage. The economy of the Kazakhs of the Younger and Middle jüz of the 18th – 19th centuries and the southeastern Bashkirs of the Middle Ages and modern period could be used as a model for reconstructing the economy of the nomads of the Southern Trans-Urals steppe. In the first variant, when ethnically related nomadic groups inhabited the steppes from the Ural foothills to Turgay, the Aral-Ural migration cycle predominated completely, with winter camps located in the Aral region, lower Syr Darya basin, and Caspian areas. When the situation had escalated in the South, winter nomadic camps shifted northward to the valleys of the Turgay, Irgiz, Or, Ilek, and Emba rivers. The second variant is characterized by the habitat of the unrelated and stronger ethnopolitical tribes in the territory from the Ural River to the Turgay and on the Cis-Ural steppe. At such a variant, an Aral-Ural circle and Southern Urals types of pastoralism prevailed. The nomads spent summer on the steppes from the Ural River to the eastern slopes of Turgay. In winter they moved to the Kyzyl-Kum, the foothills of Karatau, the middle and lower Syr Darya, and the northern and northeastern Aral Sea region. The nomads of the steppe foothills of the Urals, as well as the southeastern Bashkirs of the 18th – 19th centuries, had their camps properly in the Southern Urals. Winters they spent in the steppe foothills or intermountain valleys; summers they spent in the mountains.
Key words: Southern Trans-Urals, forest-steppe, steppe, early nomads, cattle breeding, Bashkirs, Kazakhs.
Citation. Tairov A.D., 2025. Skotovodcheskoe hozyaystvo naseleniya Yuzhnogo Zaural’ya v rannem zheleznom veke [Cattle Breeding of the Southern Trans-Urals Population in the Early Iron Age]. Nizhnevolzhskiy Arkheologicheskiy Vestnik [The Lower Volga Archaeological Bulletin], vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 5-20. DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.15688/nav.jvolsu.2025.4.1
Cattle Breeding of the Southern Trans-Urals Population in the Early Iron Ageby Tairov A.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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