High-Altitude Hunting and the Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism in Eastern Eurasia

Summary

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

The emergence of herding economies prompted drastic changes to life in eastern Eurasia—situating the cold, arid steppes of Mongolia as a center of the ancient world. Although a growing body of evidence points to an important role for mountain zones in this transition, issues of archaeological preservation have prevented a clear understanding of the subsistence base for early pastoral societies. High mountain snow and ice patches, which preserve organic biological and cultural material, provide rare snapshots into the exploitation of high-mountain zones. We present the results of archaeological survey of snow and ice patches in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia, representing a near-continuous record of more than 3,500 years of human activity. Our results demonstrate a crucial role for alpine big-game hunting in eastern Eurasia’s early herding societies, with strong evidence for exploitation of the argali sheep (*Ovis ammon). Analysis of recovered artifacts provides direct insights into Bronze Age projectile technology and hunting strategies and suggests ceremonial treatment of argali remains. Together, these finds indicate that big-game hunting in mountain zones played a significant role in the emergence of mobile pastoralism in eastern Eurasia and formed an important component of subsistence across the later Holocene.

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): 32066