Development of Pastoralism in Prehistoric Central Asia: A Case Study at Koken, East Kazakhstan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The tradition of practicing mobile pastoralism in Central Asia’s steppe, forest-steppe, and foothill regions stretches back to at least the Bronze Age period (ca. 3500–800 BC). This preliminary study explores environmental biases and related human choices in livestock management during the period of early emergence and subsequent spread of pastoralist lifeways and practices in Central Asia. To understand patterns of animal exploitation and its relation to environmental variations, this paper presents the results of faunal analysis of a large zooarchaeological assemblage from the multi-period Bronze Age site of Koken and discusses this new data in relation to previously published zooarchaeological data from other Bronze Age settlements in Central Asia. This study contributes the first reconstructions of herd management and structure for East Kazakhstan and interrogates the notion that environment and microclimates correlate to herd composition and species selection in prehistoric Central Asia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35881.0