Mongolia (Other Keyword)
1-13 (13 Records)
In 1954, Hawkes warned that the intangible aspects of social life are the most difficult for archaeologists to comment on due to distance between object and ideology, the material and the mental world. Certainly, there is an epistemological slippage that can occur when moving between categories of social life that rely on objects to legitimize claims or complete tasks, and those aspects of society which can be veiled within larger, and immaterial, structures or norms—religious beliefs,...
Conservation Recommendations for Human Skeletal Remains Excavated from Desert Oases, Cave Shelters, and Permafrost, in China and Mongolia (2017)
Tomb excavations have been documented in East Asia for over 100 years, however the focus has been on artifact collection. The systematic excavation and collection of human skeletal remains is new to this region. This study will outline three cases where there was a demonstrated need for the implementation of conservation techniques. The first case included several naturally mummified skulls from Xinjiang, Province, China. A graduate student had decided to wash the skulls to remove skin and hair....
Fortified Towns in a Nomadic Pastoral Landscape on the Mongolian Steppe: Bai Balik and the Northern Railways Archaeological Project (2017)
Mongolia is well known for its history of nomadic pastoralism and Bronze and Early Iron Age burials and monuments. For a brief period in the 8th and 9th centuries, however, the Uygher and Khitan Khanates built large towns and urban centers. One of these, Bai Balik was established about 758 CE during the northward expansion of the Uyghur Empire, by the Uyghur khagan, Bayanchur Khan as a ceremonial and trading center in the fertile and strategically located Selenge Valley. This well-known site,...
Holocene Perspectives from the Gobi Desert: New Paleoethnobotanical and Geoarchaeological Analyses at Delger Khan Uul, Mongolia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological site of Delger Khan Uul is located in southeastern Mongolia near the eastern Gobi Desert. Today, the climate is semi-arid with cold winters and warm summers, but the region has experienced dramatic changes since the beginning of the Holocene with intervals of warm and cool periods. Utilizing lake cores we can gauge climatic trends for the...
In Search of Upper Paleolithic Sites in Alluvial Contexts in the Tsukh (Chikoi) Valley, Northern Mongolia (2015)
Mongolia, located at a key crossroads for human migration between central, eastern, and northern Asia, is important for understanding a number of current hotly debated archaeological topics, including the possible human exodus out of northern Eurasia at the Last Glacial Maximum (24,000-18,000 cal yr BP), the emergence of microblade technology as an adaptation to extremely cold and harsh environmental conditions, and the route and process of an initial modern human migration into high latitudes...
The Initial Upper Paleolithic of Northern Mongolia: Site Function, Mobility and Assemblage Plasticity (2017)
In the broadest sense, the term Initial Upper Paleolithic refers to archaeological assemblages that, without being necessarily ‘transitional’, combine retained Middle Paleolithic and derived Upper Paleolithic features. Here, we present an assemblage that documents such a phenomenon at the site of Tolbor 16, northern Mongolia. Although we suggest that the layer 7b can be assigned to the northeast Asian variant of the IUP, a detailed analysis and the use of a narrow definition highlights some...
The Intersection of Heritage Management and Academic Research: Results and Research Implications of Archaeological Survey of the Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, Dornogobi Province, Mongolia. (2017)
The Cultural Heritage Program at Ikh Nart Nature Reserve is an on-going project sponsored by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (California State Parks). Over the past seven years, the project has focused on developing methods, strategies, and protocols for the management of the rich archaeological landscapes within the reserve. During this period, the project has recorded and assessed over 140 archaeological sites documenting more than 9000 years of cultural...
Into the Distance: Initial observations from the Dornod Mongol Survey (2015)
We will report on the initial fieldwork of the Dornod Mongol Survey, an ongoing project in Southeastern Mongolia. This paper will discuss inhabitation and the integration and construction of social landscapes through time, touch upon our methods for recovering this data and ways in which we use it. The structure of our project allows us to challenge the frontier identity of this region in several time periods through chronological frameworks, scales of interaction and integration. Our focus...
Investigating the Methods and Practice of Ritual Horse Sacrifice and Butchery in Late Bronze Age Mongolia. (2017)
Although archaeological data link late Bronze Age cultures with the emergence of mobile herding in eastern Eurasia, the practices and social function of domestic horse sacrifice remain poorly understood. We investigated slaughter and butchery evidence from 18 sacrificial horse burials from the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) Complex, a late Bronze Age Mongolian culture linked with the first emergence of horse herding and transport in the eastern Steppe. Using digital microscopy, we analyzed each...
Karakorum, Mongolia, a complex urban site in a non-urban society (2017)
It is undisputed that Karakorum was founded by the Mongol Emperor/Khan, saying this means we analyze a top-down planned large city in a non-sedentary, non-urban society. Therefore we will address the question of the layout of the city and the spatial organization. How are activities and people ordered, is there common space, what kind of infrastructure is provided by the city founders and how is it maintained during the nearly 200 years of the existence of the city. At which areas were landmark...
Modeling Archaeological Site Location in Northern Mongolia: The Northern Railways Archaeological Project (2016)
Around the world, predictive models are increasingly important to heritage management by estimating where sites are likely to be located, particularly in un-surveyed areas. Northern Mongolia is well known for its archaeological resources, particularly Bronze Age and Early Iron Age sites, but vast areas remain to be surveyed. This poster presents a project conducted by the Mongolian International Heritage Team and Statistical Research to provide recommendations on the routing of a proposed...
The Way the Wind Blows on the Steppe: The Historical Ecology of Mortuary Monuments in Mongolia (1500 BC-1400 AD) (2016)
Subject to continuous change, landscapes represent palimpsests of successive alterations over time. As such, landscapes have history. Following Carole Crumley’s major contributions to historical ecology, this paper charts diachronic change in mortuary landscapes in Mongolia against the backdrop of three major nomadic polities: the Xiongnu (200 BC-200 AD), The Turk Empire (550-850 AD), and the Mongol Empire (1200-1400 AD). The construction of impressive funerary stone monuments has been a...
The World of the Living and the World of the Dead - A Bronze Age Monumental Landscape in Central Mongolia (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. The Bronze Age landscape in Mongolia is characterized by valleys with regularly arranged groups of monuments which are believed to represent the focus of a community. Depending on the ecology of the area the distance between such site clusters varies. This even distribution is punctuated by large concentrations of...