Eurasia (Other Keyword)
1-11 (11 Records)
Most studies of Silk Road connections between East Asia and Europe focus on exchanges between China and the Roman and Byzantine worlds. In Japan however the eastern Silk Road terminus is regarded as Nara where the Imperial Palace gathered a wealth of treasures from Central Asia. At the other end of Eurasia, silk and Buddhist images discovered in northwestern Europe testify to the Silk Road’s significance beyond its commonly-accepted western terminus. This presentation seeks to insert these...
Bronze Age to Early Iron Age Pastoralist settlements in Xinjiang, China (2016)
The period from the Bronze Age (2500-900 BCE) to Early Iron Age (900-200 BCE) witnessed the emergence and flourish of some massive pastoralist settlements along the Tian-Shan Mountains in Xinjiang, China. Specifically, these large-scale settlements mainly cluster in three regions known as Balikun, Wenquan and Hejing, located in the eastern, western and middle Tian-Shan Mountains respectively. Recent investigation of pastoralist settlement remains in these three regions offers a wealth of...
Expansion and extinction: the Collapse of the Mammoth Steppe fauna (2015)
More and more we become aware of the impact of climate change on our natural environment. The fossil record shows how extensive that impact can be. The woolly mammoth, the emperor of the animal kingdom during the Late Pleistocene, dominated the fauna of Eurasia for thousands of years, but the territory of the species shrunk dramatically; rather recently the woolly mammoth, together with for example the woolly rhinoceros and the giant deer, became extinct. Other species flourished due to the...
Is the fortification always about fortress? The case of Middle Bronze Age fortified settlements in Northern Eurasia (2015)
There are 22 fortified settlements of the Middle Bronze Age discovered in Russia for last 40 years through the methods of aerial photography analysis and field excavations. All together they are known as Sintashta archeological culture of Southern Urals. The typical Sintashta settlement is usually enclosure consists of 1-4 meters deep ditch and the wall built of dirt and clay. However, the current analysis of the settlement patterning using GIS suggests that people chose the place of living...
The Middle Upper Paleolithic of the Transbaikal, Russia: Ice Age Humans in Southern Siberia (2016)
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26-20 kya) was a time of reduced global temperatures. Southern Siberia, where decades of Paleolithic research have demonstrated a keen link between environment and middle Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer behavior, offers a unique testing ground to examine various ecologically sound models about whether human populations declined or disappeared during the height of the last ice age. Other unanswered questions have to do with the origin and dispersal of microliths...
Modeling Bronze Age Isoscapes in the Eurasian steppe: Identifying subtle variation in pastoral diet and mobility (2015)
Isotopic investigations of ancient materials often lack the robust isotopic baselines necessary for comparative analyses. A paucity of isotopic data for baseline ecology creates gaps in our knowledge and allows for multiple interpretations of prehistoric practices. This is especially true for the Eurasian steppe, where isotopic values have been used to consider long-distance human migrations without sufficient baselines. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to use an innovative approach in...
Modeling the Spread of Crops across Eurasia (2017)
Understanding the routes and the timing of the spread of western Eurasia domesticates to Asia and of Asian domesticates to Europe and the Near East has become an increasing focus of research. To date, however, we have had little understanding of the types of constraints that farmers may have faced as they moved these domesticates into the challenging environments of Central Asia. The spread of many of these domesticates also took place during a time of marked climatic change. Although it has...
A novel method to hypothesize the movements of archaeological metal: a case study on the bronze metallurgy in the central Eurasian Steppe Belt by the second millennium BC (2015)
Traditionally, archaeometallurgists have been focusing on the provenance of metal which assumes a direct linkage between the chemistry of metal ores and metal objects. On the basis of this assumption, they have attempted to reconstruct the flow of raw material across regions/cultures. However, this approach is potentially flawed, since the recycling of metal would alter the initial composition of objects, making the straightforward comparison of metal and ore chemistry problematic. Rather than...
Redefining Configurations of Urban Settings in Steppe Societies (2015)
Despite exciting turns in archaeological approaches to ‘urbanism’ emphasizing smaller-scale or lower-density occupations, the study of urban centers among mobile pastoral groups continues to escape notice. The development of urban centers associated with intensive production, exchange, and habitation are often deemed incompatible with societies that have mobile components, or are engaged in greater mobility related to pastoral production. Nevertheless, numerous Eurasian steppe societies have...
Technological, Typological and Forensic Analysis of the Small Finds from the Early Middle Paleolithic Beds at Tabun Cave, Israel. (2015)
Tabun Cave, Israel, has provided the reference sequence for the Late Lower and Middle Paleolithic in the Levant. Re-excavation by Jelinek (1968-73) recovered a large sample of lithics including over 23,000 small finds. This paper reports the first detailed typological, technological and forensic analysis of the small lithics from beds 60 to 68, the Early Middle Paleolithic (EMP) "D-Type" Levallois Mousterian. These pieces provide clues to lithic reduction sequences, as well as examples of...
Three Cities in the Heartland of the Khitan Liao Empire (2017)
A wide range of Medieval settlement has been identified in the watershed of the Shar mörön river, a territory of grassland and narrow river valleys in the heartland of the nomadic Khitan and their Liao state (907-1125 CE). These settlements range from village landscapes to imperial capitals. This paper will introduce three urban settings of the Liao state: (1) A mercantile center, (2) a local administrative hub, and (3) an imperial capital city along with their immediate hinterlands. Through a...