Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This collection of papers highlights the state of the art in the study of the archaeology of Eurasian medieval urbanism. The field has moved beyond simple recognition to that there is such a thing as cities in the grasslands of nomads, to examining these central places in detail and, in many cases, surpassing previous historical sources in detail and depth. Many research projects have enriched our understanding of steppe empires, the interaction of mobile and sedentary populations, networks, and state building. Together they are piecing together the story of steppe urbanism, covering a period of a thousand years, This archaeology is not a twenty-first-century innovation but rooted in the work of many scholars from many national archaeological traditions stretching back into the twentieth century. Papers in this symposium will synthesize and celebrate recent and foundational work on cities in Eastern Eurasia and their contexts from the Turkic periods (seventh CE) through the Mongol Empire (thirteenth–fourteenth CE) and into more recent eras.

Other Keywords
Urbanism • Historic • Historical Archaeology • Settlement patterns • Ethnohistory/History • Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology • Digital Archaeology: GIS

Geographic Keywords
Kyrgyz Republic (Country) • Asia (Continent) • Japan (Country) • Mongolia (Country) • Republic of India (Country) • People's Republic of Bangladesh (Country) • Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Country) • Union of Myanmar (Country) • People's Republic of China (Country) • Republic of Korea (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)

  • Documents (6)
Documents
  • Constructing Space: An Imperial Launched Settlement System in the Core Area of the Mongol Empire (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jan Bemmann.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Permanent settlements of the Mongol Empire era on the Mongolian Plateau seem to be rare and only few sites have been explored so far in some detail. Well-known are Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol Yeke Ulus, Avraga near the Kherlen River, and Khirkhira in Transbaikalia. To date, there is no differentiation of settlements by form and...

  • The Emergence of New Urban Nodes in Qing Period Mongolia (Seventeenth to Early Twentieth Century): Contrasting Roles and Histories of Monastic and Military Sites (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Henny Piezonka.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Mongolia, the relation between sedentary urban and mobile herder lifeways has constituted a key socioeconomic and political factor for more than a millennium. This history is most prominently present in the Orkhon valley, preserving traces of various urban centers including the Medieval capital of Karakorum. Much less is known about...

  • How to Describe Mongol Period Urbanism on the Mongolian Plateau (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Susanne Reichert.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The paper will introduce and discuss a set of themes deemed crucial for the understanding of settlement practices on the Mongolian plateau during the time of the Mongol Empire. The past 20 years witnessed a burgeoning of research endeavors regarding Mongol period settlement sites. Mongolian, Japanese, Russian, German, and US...

  • Spatial Dynamics of Urbanization at the Onset of the First Turk Empire (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Annie Chan.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The contours of medieval urban transformation astride the Tarim-Tian Shan mid-latitudes are to a large extent viewed through the lens of religious iconography and Chinese political history. Thus, research is often directed at finds evincing the materiality of interregional cultural forms that demarcate routes of transmission conforming to...

  • Urbanism in Western Medieval Central Asia: Dynastic Jewels and Dynamic Networks (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elissa Bullion. Farhad Maksudov. Michael Frachetti.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ninth to thirteenth centuries in the western Eurasian steppe and Central Asia were a period of intensive urban growth. Cities such as Bukhara and Marv boasted large populations in the hundreds of thousands, were home to large communities of scientific and religious scholars, and were transformed by large-scale construction, commonly...

  • Walled Sites beyond the Wall: Labeling Liao Towns in Archaeology and Historical Geography (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lance Pursey.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the course of its 200+ year tenure the Kitan-Liao dynasty (907–1125) saw large migrations, intensification of settlements, and widespread construction of walled sites of varying sizes north of the Great Wall (N41°+) across the grassland ecotones of North Asia. The remains of some 650 such walled sites are distributed across Inner...