Kyrgyz Republic (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
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Most archaeologists would agree that ancient irrigation systems preserve important information about the technology, economy, and social organization of past societies. However, considering that archaeologists generally lack training in hydraulics, it is often difficult for us to extract much information from an ancient irrigation system beyond basic description and chronology. Thanks to the recent development in drone technology and flow modeling techniques we now have the option of generating...
Abandoned Cities in the Steppe: Roles and Perception of Early Modern Religious and Military Centers in Nomadic Mongolia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Towns and cities have been an integral part of the Mongolian nomadic society for more than a millennium, and abandoned urban sites from various periods dot the land, inscribing memories of lost empires and long-gone alliances into the cultural landscape. The relation between sedentary urban and mobile pastoralist lifeways has constituted a key...
Acheulean Hominins and Out of Africa Dispersals: Challenges and Advances (2018)
The dispersal of Acheulean hominins outside of Africa is one of the most important research areas in human evolutionary studies, having been the topic of paleoanthropologists and archaeologists for many decades. Yet, precise knowledge about the timing and geographic movement of archaic hominins across Eurasia is still in its infancy. The aim of this presentation is to discuss what we currently know about the distribution of Acheulean hominins, and to report on new field work findings in southern...
Afanasievo Settlement Archaeology in the Altai Republic (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Steppe by Steppe: Advances in the Archaeology of Eastern Eurasia" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Afanasievo culture in the Altai Mountains (ca. 3300–2800 BCE) has long captured our attention as the first pastoralists to spread to Inner Asia. Known almost exclusively through osteological remains and material culture from mortuary contexts, settlement data have remained scarce for characterizing the subsistence...
Affective Foundations: The Dissolution of Human Sacrifice under the Western Zhou, 1046-771 BC (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition from the Late Shang state (ca. 1300 – 1046 BC) based in Anyang to the Western Zhou state (ca. 1046 – 771 BC) founded in Shaanxi represents one of the most significant geopolitical and cultural transformations in ancient China. The conquest of the Shang by a Zhou-led alliance precipitated in the elimination of the human sacrificial rituals...
The Afghanistan Cultural Heritage Education Program: A Collaborative, International Education Model (2018)
The Afghanistan Cultural Heritage Education Program (ACHEP) is a collaborative project administered by the United States National Park Service and implemented by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Arizona and the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Kabul University. This international outreach effort engages Afghanistan’s educators, students, and professionals in educational programs and activities to preserve and protect the country’s rich cultural heritage and to...
Agricultural Labor Organizations and Management Strategies in the Prehistoric Erdaojingzi Site, Inner Mongolia, China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food preparation is an arena for the understanding of social performances, and its scope is often indicative of the fabrications of social relations in historical contexts. This paper investigates daily food preparations in archaeological contexts and considers social bonds through the lens of mundane meals. By doing so, we aim to shift the focus from the...
Agricultural Practices of the Qin People from the Warring States Period to the Qin Dynasty: A Case from the Matengkong Site in Guanzhong Basin, China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Populations of Early Medieval China: Developing Anthropological Approaches to Historical Archaeology in China" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In archaeological studies, the Qin people have often been the subject of research. The areas of investigation about the Qin include their origin, structure of tombs, funeral rites and interment processes, and cities and settlements. Although there are some studies on the Qin...
Agriculture development in the Bronze Age Hexi Corridor-archaeobtanic evidence from Xichengyi site (2017)
The combination of crops and weeds found in the site reflects a typical rainfed agriculture dominated by foxtail millet and broomcorn millet. Under the external cultural influences, wheat and barley started to be cultivated. Since late Machang culture and, through the agricultural development during the "Transitional type" period, were widely cultivated during the period of Siba culture, when marijuna appeared in the crop assemblages. The integrated study of archaeobotanical and...
Agriculture, Alcohol, and Urban Economies in Late Neolithic North China: A Case Study from the Shimao Site (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Cities: Perspectives from the New and Old Worlds on Wild Foods, Agriculture, and Urban Subsistence Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The late Neolithic period in China witnessed a boost of settlement scale and number, interregional interactions and exchanges, and sociopolitical and economic complexities. The Shimao site, located in the north Loess Plateau, China, was one of the most important urban...
Alcohol in Complex Society in Northwest China : A case study from the Mogou site (1800-1200BC) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research in recent years has substantiated the prevalent presence and utilization of cereal-based fermented beverages in prehistoric China. In this study, residue analysis was applied to pottery artifacts excavated from the Mogou site, which dates to approximately between 1800 BC and 1200 BC in Gansu Province, northwest China. By comparing these ancient...
Alcohol, Rituals, and Spirits at the Late Shang Center: Residue Analysis of Ceramic Vessels in Anyang (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Drinking Beer in a Blissful Mood: A Global Archaeology of Beer" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Bronze Age of China, alcohol practice was an integral part of rituals and the spiritual world as a social agent in hierarchical societies. Multiple types of alcoholic beverages appeared in the earliest writings of the late Shang dynasty some 3,200 years ago. However, little research has been done to characterize how...
Analysis of Ancient Chinese Pottery Utilizing X-Ray Fluorescence and Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (2017)
Field studies were performed at the Yangguanzhai Neolithic site near Xi’an, China, using an Olympus Delta Premium portable XRF spectrometer and an Agilent ExoScan FTIR spectrometer. 932 ceramic sherds collected from nine locations across the site were selected and classified based on color (red, tan and brown), decorations (painted, rope impression - cord or thread, and plain), and time period (Miaodigou and Banpo IV). Each sherd was broken, so that the analysis could be performed on a clean...
Analysis of the Faunal Remains at Shangjing city site, Inner Mongolia (2013 excavation) (2017)
The Shangjing city site is located on the boundary between agricultural and herding subsistence economies in the Western Liao River Basin, eastern Inner Mongolia. The site was used as the Upper capital in the Liao Dynasty (A.D 916 - A.D. 1125) and the Northern capital city in the Jin Dynasty (A.D. 1115 - A.D. 1234). In 2013, several burials in the Liao and Jin Periods were unearthed, and more than 36,000 faunal remains, including bones and teeth, were collected systematically. Although Liao and...
An Analysis on the Taosi Cemetery from the Late Neolithic in North-central China (2018)
Taosi is one of the largest sites surrounded by the huge fortification during the late Neolithic in the middle Yellow River valley. So far the archaeologists have excavated a large cemetery, and uncovered a number of burials at Taosi. These burials can be divided into a few categories based on their scale, structure and grave goods, representing the different social ranks. The cemetery consists of several sections, which represent the different social groups. During the early Longshan period,...
Ancient DNA analysis of early Neolithic cattle from Houtaomuga site, Northern China (2017)
The Houtaomuga site is located on the east bank of Xinhuangpao Lake, in Da'an County, Jilin Province, Northeast China. According to the archaeological excavations, the Houtaomuga site can be divided into seven phases from the early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age (8000-2050 BP). Although many Bos skeletal remains were found in the phases Houtaomuga III (6300-5500 cal. BP) and Houtaomuga IV (5000 cal. BP), it was very difficult to identify to the species level. In this study, ancient DNA...
Ancient DNA of a nomadic population provides evidence of the genetic structure of the royal ancient Mongols (2017)
The genetic diversity of the ancient Mongols, especially the Gold family of Genghis Khan remains unclear. Gangga site was a nomadic site dated to the 8th to 10th centuries AD in the HulunBuir grassland, northeast China. This site belonged to the Shiwei population, believed to be the direct ancestors of the ancient Mongols. Nine graves at the Gangga site were excavated with log coffins, which were considered the characteristic burial custom of the royal ancient Mongols, included the Gold family...
Ancient DNA Studies of Domesticated Cattle in Northern China (2017)
This study aims to use ancient DNA techniques to characterize the genetic features of ancient domesticated cattle in order to trace the origin and spread of cattle in ancient China from eight Late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Northern China. DNA was successfully extracted from ancient cattle bone or tooth samples in dedicated ancient DNA labs following vigorous protocols for contamination controls. This study was focused on amplifying mitochondrial D-loop using standard PCR techniques....
Ancient genomics of Neolithic to Bronze Age Baikal hunter-gatherers (2017)
Genome-wide data from hunter-gatherer populations of the Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic has provided unprecedented insight into the human evolutionary and demographic trajectory. However such datasets have hitherto been largely confined to Western Eurasia. The sole representative of Inner Asian past populations post-dating the split between paleolithic Europeans and Asians, as well as paleolithic Siberians and East Asians, are the Mal'ta and Afontova Gora individuals, the Ancient North East...
Ancient Mongolian Aurochs Genomes Reveal Connections to East Asian Cattle (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From the Altai to the Arctic: New Results and New Directions in the Archaeology of North and Inner Asia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Societies in East Asia have utilized domesticated cattle since approximately 5,000 years ago, but the origins of East Asian cattle remain understudied. Possible experimentation with management of wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) and other bovids has been hypothesized but not explored in...
Ancient Residues Indicate Prehistoric Subsistence and Culinary Practices in the Korean Peninsula during the Middle Holocene (2017)
This study attempts to understand ancient human subsistence using isotope analysis on the organic residues extracted from the archaeological potsherds collected from prehistoric coastal shell midden sites in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. In Korean archaeology, shell middens are useful for isotope analysis because they provide suitable condition in terms of organic preservation. To date, the subsistence of these prehistoric coastal and island dwellers remains poorly known. However,...
Animal Resources Utilization and Management at the Late Neolithic Dinggong Site, China: Evidences from Stable Isotope Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Thoughts on Current Research in East Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The long-term excavations at Dinggong, a late Neolithic site in northern China (c. 2600-2000 cal. BC), have uncovered extensive human and faunal remains with clear contextual information. We carried out stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of faunal remains to investigate the animal resources utilization and management of...
Animal utilization and animal rituals of the Okhotsk culture: with special reference to their period and regional differences (2017)
In the animal utilization and animal rituals of the Okhotsk culture, chronological and regional differences can be observed. Significant differences can be seen between the northern and eastern regions of Hokkaido in terms of the volume of archaeological artifacts recovered relating to both domestic animals (dogs, pigs) and wild animals. In northern Hokkaido, there are conspicuous differences in the use of a variety of fishes and types of sea urchins between the early period (Towada) and the...
Applying a Life History Framework to Analyzing Metal Age Metal Assemblages from Thailand (2017)
Application of archaeometric techniques to metals and related evidence from prehistoric sites in Southeast Asia is in its infancy. One result is that sample sizes per site have in most cases been minute or even unspecified, although in rare instances, such as Ban Chiang, sample sizes for metallographic and elemental analyses have been more robust and representative. Small sample sizes obscure key evidence for intrasite and regional variability in technological and economic systems. Recent lead...
Archaeobotanical records of the Middle and Late Neolithic plant food utilization from North Jiangsu Plain (2017)
As an transition zone between the southern and northern China, the Huai river valley possesses distinct uniqueness in climate environment, agriculture, archaeological culture and other aspects. We have taken a series of archaeobotany case study on the Neolithic sites of different period,such as Shunshanji, Longqiuzhuang, Wanbei, in the lower Huai river valley. Combined with previous archaeobotany research in this area, so we can summarize the plant food utilization in various periods. The...