Questions concerning mobility and migration as well as subsistence strategies of past societies
have always been of major importance in archaeological research. The West Eurasian steppes in
the Eneolithic the Early Bronze and the Iron Age were largely inhabited by cultural
communities believed to show an elevated level of spatial mobility often linked to their
subsistence economy. In this volume questions concerning the mobility and potential migration
as well as the diet and economy of the West Eurasian steppes communities during the 4th the
3rd and the 1st Millennia BC are approached by applying isotope analysis specifically 87Sr
86Sr d18O d15N and d13C analyses. Adapting a combination of different isotopic systems to a
study area of vast spatial and chronological dimension allowed a wide variety of questions to
be answered and establishes the beginning of a database of biogeochemical data for the West
Eurasian steppes. Besides the characterisation of mobility and subsistence patterns of the
archaeological communities under discussion attempts to identify possible Early Bronze Age
migrations from the steppes to the steppe-like plains in parts of Eastern Europe were made
alongside an evaluation of the applicability of isotope analysis to this context.
