Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism

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.