Use and Reuse of Burial Space during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Mongolia: A Case Study from Zaraa Uul

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the late second millennium BC, communities in the Gobi-steppe of Mongolia began to build unique burial structures made of stone. The Late Bronze Age builders of these mortuary features employed new forms of surface demarcation and for the first time in this region, individuals were interred in a prone position. At the turn of the millennium, this prone tradition was replaced by subsequent “Slab Burial” mortuary culture. In recent years, archaeologists working in Mongolia have increasingly focused on this transition to the Early Iron Age because this period is crucial in the development of social and political complexity, horseback riding, and long-distance trade and exchange. This paper presents the results of recent excavations at Zara Uul in eastern Mongolia. The data generated from this project sheds new light on the transition of two periods through the documentation of the use and reuse of burial space during the Early Iron Age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33177