Winter Is Coming: Is ‘Fortification’ Always Fortification?

Summary

The case study comes from the southern Urals, Russia. Since 1970’s the walled settlements of the Sintashta archaeological culture (2000-1700 BC) have been interpreted as the fortified towns and centers of social life for the religious and war leaders of the local communities. However, settlements’ primary locations on the bottoms of the rivers’ valleys, as well as lack of other evidence for the warfare, cause doubts about such interpretation. Analysis of natural environments (e.g., local wind, precipitation, water tables) and strategic features of locations allows a different interpretation. With the equal chance, the Sintashta ‘fortified’ settlements can be artificial ecological niches that allowed pastoralists to keep and maintain livestock in the harsh winter conditions. If this was the case when the original interpretation is not fully correct, and at least in some cases we should be more critical about our understanding of warfare landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19991