Dmitry S. Korobov 1*, Aleksandr V. Borisov 2**, Anna N. Babenko 1*, Aleksey Yu. Sergeev 1*, Elena V. Chernysheva 2**

1 Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
2Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science RAS, Pushchino, Russia
E-mail: * dkorobov@mail.ru; mnemosina_a@mail.ru; elfyatina@yandex.ru
**E-mail: a.v.borisovv@gmail.com; chernysheva1988@gmail.com

Keywords: transhumance cattle breeding, Northern Caucasus, the early Middle Ages, archeobotany, palynology, paleopedology.

The article summarizes results of the comprehensive research of cattle maintenance locations – stone fencings and rock shelters – conducted in the mid- and high-mountainous areas of the Kislovodsk Depression in 2015–2016. Inside the stone fences and around them, topographic surveying, testdrilling, and photogrammetric fixation of stone structures were carried out, background soil cuts were executed. The archaeobotanical remains, stable isotopes and pollen obtained from zoogenic deposits were analyzed. An analysis of the morphological-genetic, chemical and microbiological properties of soils in enclosures and rock shelters was undertaken. The comprehensive studies of stone enclosures allow reliable dating the emergence of such structures by the late Bronze Age – the early Iron Age and the early Middle Ages and to reveal traces of their re-use in the Modern and Contemporary Times. Preliminary observations allow us to locate the seasonal cattle maintenance by the Alanian population of the Kislovodsk Depression in the subalpine zone, presumably in spring and summer, and in the immediate vicinity of the settlements in the interior of the depression in autumn and winter.

DOI: 10.7868/S0869606318020095