Early Evidence of Producing Economy in the Hissar Culture: An Overview of Research Concepts

The transition to farming is a revolutionary step in human history. Domesticated species of cereals and small ruminants which spread from the territory of the countries of the Fertile Crescent appear in Central Asia during the early Neolithic period (the 6th — 5th millennium BC). In the middle of the 20th century several Neolithic cultures prominent for the Central-Asian region were defined: Jeitun, Kelteminar and Hissar. This publication is devoted to the consideration of the Hissar culture and the existing reconstructions of its economic structure. The Gissar culture is widespread on the territory of the Gissar-Alai and dates from the 6th to the 2nd millennium BC. Since the late 1950s the researchers tried to determine the type of economy of the carriers of the Hissar culture: the early stage of agriculture and cattle breeding; hunting and gathering; nomadic cattle breeding. This article examines the main arguments “for” and “against” the existence of a productive economy in the Hissar culture, namely, cattle breeding. Based on a number of signs, such as the presence of long-term and short-term camps, a large number of bones of small ruminants, the availability of year-round pastures at the site, the absence of hunting tools in the toolkit, the team of authors agrees with the point of view of V. A. Ranova and G. F. Korobkova about the use of early cattle breeding by the Hissar people. However, this hypothesis requires additional elaboration using bioarchaeological research methods. Keywords: Central Asia, Hissaro-Alay, Hissar, Neolithic, pastopalism Acknowledgements: The analysis of the general problems was carried out with the support of the project of the Russian Science Foundation No. 19–78–10053 “Origin of the Industrial Economy in the Mountainous Part of Central Asia”, the analysis of materials from the Hissar culture was carried out within the framework of the research program No. 0329–2019–0002 “Ancient Cultural Processes in the Territory of Central Asia”.