Asia: Central Asia (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (86 Records)
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...
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...
Archaeological and Ethnographic Plant Use in Mongolia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The history and prehistory of Mongolia and Central Asia is sometimes characterized as static nomadic pastoralism, with little to no change in resource use over hundreds of years. Many scholars have debunked this unnuanced image by showing the complexities of pastoral lifeways, as well as the adoption of other subistence strategies in areas traditionally...
The Archaeology and Ancient Genomics of Early Horse Domestication: Not as Simple as Once Thought! (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest unambiguous evidence for equine husbandry relates to the Eneolithic Botai Culture of Northern Kazakhstan, circa. 5,500 years ago. However, whilst recent archaeological investigations and ancient genomics have added further weight to the case for domesticity and husbandry, it is now apparent that Botai horses are...
Archaeology of Mining in Central Asia: Current Projects, Approaches, and Limitations (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology of mining in ancient Central Asia has long interested Russian-speaking archaeologists and geologists. Already in 1917, for example, Veber recognized Central Asia as a fertile ground for archaeological inquiry concerning pre-modern mines. Yet, perhaps due to remoteness and political setting, the research produced...
Believers in the Highlands: Burying the Muslim Dead at the Qarakhanid Site of Tashbulak (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in Mountain and Highland Landscapes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Islam spread into Central Asia via the Arab invasions of the 7th century CE. According to current historical narratives, Islam’s first footholds were lowland urban centers, with Islam only slowly infiltrating the highlands. New research, presented here, challenges the idea that highland areas were a barrier to Islam. This paper...
Beyond the Final Frontier: Time and Materiality in the Peripheralization of Bronze Age Eurasian Steppe Pastoral Societies (2018)
Archaeologists studying prehistoric Eurasian steppe pastoral lifeways often seek inclusion into comparative research of urbanism, craft production, and complexity. Even as these studies contribute valuable information, they also reify their place in the intellectual periphery of archaeological inquiry. This peripheralization is due to several factors. First, the Eurasian steppe is perhaps unwittingly conceptualized as a relatively timeless socio-geographical periphery to "state-level" social...
Borderland Processes and the Question of BMAC in NE Iran (2018)
How frontiers and borders are conceptualized in archaeology is critically influenced by the approaches and perspectives in culture contact research. Absence of written documents from Bronze Age Central Asia severely limits the application of such theories. The nature of the Bronze Age civilization of Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia, and its dispersion to neighboring NE Iran has been a long-lasting question in study of Prehistoric Western Asia. This paper aims to...
Bronze Age Transitions in Their Own Words: Central Asian Interfaces (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. Loanword analysis is a unique contribution of historical linguistics to our understanding of prehistoric cultural interfaces. As language reflects the lives of its speakers, the substantiation of loanwords draws on the composite evidence from linguistic as well as archaeology and...
California and Mongolia “Sister Parks” Have Common Goals: How Did that Happen? (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Public Lands, Public Sites: Research, Engagement, and Collaboration" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A partnership between Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (California) and Ikh Nart Nature Reserve (Mongolia) began in 2010 and continues through the present. Annually, a team of American archaeologists, cultural resource management specialists, and volunteers visit Ikh Nart to demonstrate and implement cultural heritage...
Ceramic Use and Production at Iron Age Bashtepe, Uzbekistan: A Preliminary Petrographic Study (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Step by Step: Tracing World Potting Traditions through Ceramic Petrography" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ceramic corpus at Bashtepe, Uzbekistan, is a complex mix of pottery forms, fabrics, and technology. Some vessels are hand-made, while others are wheel-made. Transport vessels, cooking pots, and fine ware are all present. To better understand the acquisition and local production of this corpus, a preliminary...
Cities in the Heartland of the Mongol Empire (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Campsite to Capital – Mobility Patterns and Urbanism in Inner Asia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 2016 to 2018 the two largest cities of the Mongol Empire, 13/14th century, in nowadays Mongolia were mapped using a SQUID-(Superconducting Quantum Interference Device)-magnetometer coupled with a DGPS. Thanks to this pioneering technique it was possible to create a high precision topographic and magnetic map in...
Conceptualizing Eurasian Steppe Space, Place and Movement (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wheels, Horses, Babies and Bathwaters: Celebrating the Impact of David W. Anthony on the Study of Prehistory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The scholarly contributions by David Anthony have added significantly to current understandings of prehistory in the Eurasian steppes. Drawing on multiple lines of evidence, ranging from historical sources, archaeological data, genetics and linguistics, he has developed...
Continuity and Change on the Gobi Frontier: Geoarchaeology of Human Adaptations to Desertification in Southern Mongolia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Northgrippian climatic stage of the mid-Holocene epoch in East Asia was marked by a period of pronounced warm/moist climatic conditions. This had a profound impact on the hydrology and vegetation in the northernmost region of the Gobi Desert located in southern Mongolia. Our geoarchaeological and archaeological...
Deer Stones and the Bronze to Iron Age Transition in Mongolia (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. The Late Bronze Age Mongolian culture known for its memorial deer stones and khirigsuur burials (DSK complex), dating to 1300–700 BCE, persists over several hundred years with little change in ritual art and architecture. Deer stones are memorials to deceased leaders that display...
Defining Suitability in Mixed Pastoral-Agricultural Societies: A Case Study from Bactria in Northern Afghanistan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Fifty Years of Fretwell and Lucas: Archaeological Applications of Ideal Distribution Models" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the concept of suitability as a guiding parameter for applications of the Ideal Free/Despotic Distribution (IFD/IDD) in cases of mixed pastoral and agricultural economies. We briefly review recent archaeological survey data and research from Central Asia to contextualize how...
The Delgerkhaan uul Survey: Preliminary Results (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. The paper reports on a full coverage intensive survey of a water rich region in the Southeast Gobi desert, Mongolia, which with the support of many excavations provide a robust chronological framework from the mid-Holocene to the historic Manchu period. Archaeological survey recorded...
Development of Pastoralism in Prehistoric Central Asia: A Case Study at Koken, East Kazakhstan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The tradition of practicing mobile pastoralism in Central Asia’s steppe, forest-steppe, and foothill regions stretches back to at least the Bronze Age period (ca. 3500–800 BC). This preliminary study explores environmental biases and related human choices in livestock management during the period of early emergence and...
A (Different) Pot for Every Grave: Multiscalar Burial Analysis of a Bronze Age Cemetery in Eastern Kazakhstan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The prehistoric site of Koken, located in the semiarid foothills of eastern Kazakhstan, records a deep history of human occupation spanning the Mesolithic to historical periods. Our research at Koken since 2019 has focused on an integrated habitation, rock art, and cemetery complex dating to the Bronze Age. We will present...
Diffusion, Migration, and "Culture" in the Eurasian Bronze Age (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wheels, Horses, Babies and Bathwaters: Celebrating the Impact of David W. Anthony on the Study of Prehistory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The past 25 years has led to a completely new understanding of Eurasian Prehistory. Archaeometric analysis, landscape archaeology, and aDNA have allowed longstanding debates to be silenced, and fundamental principles underpinning key concepts such as social interaction,...
Digital Archaeology In Mongolia: Visualizing the Data (2018)
This study presents results from data visualizations of archaeological sites in northern and western Mongolia. Unlike traditional site documentation techniques applied throughout the discipline, digitalization of data while in the field presents distinct advantages for the study and preservation of both cultural heritage and archaeological data collections. These methods include the production of digital 3D maps, from both aerial and hand-held photogrammetry, data collection with tablets using...
A Diverse Form of Organization in the Pazyryk Culture (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pazyryk Culture, situated in the Altai Mountains of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China, flourished for a relatively short period, fifth–third centuries BCE. A series of burial grounds from the later phase, fourth–mid-third centuries BCE, reveal the remains of three groups of individuals of high, mid, and lower status....
Diversity and Unity: Different Crop Consumption in East Tianshan Mountains, Northwest China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The region of east Tianshan Mountains, located in east edge of Central Asia, has a diverse natural environment that is suitable for a variety of subsistence. The first millennium BC was a period with fluctuating climate and rapid cultural interactions in this region. This study conducted...
Early Islamic Glazed Ceramics from Bukhara and Tashkent: An Archaeometric Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of the archaeometric analysis of 150 early Islamic style glazed ceramics from Central Asia. The glazed ceramics, introduced to the region in the ninth century CE, served as important cultural markers and demonstrated the intentional affiliation that the residents in Mā Warāʾ an-Nahr developed with...