How to Describe Mongol Period Urbanism on the Mongolian Plateau

Summary

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 archaeologists made tremendous strides in the exploration of this understudied subject. It is therefore time to synthesize these results going beyond the paramount example of Karakorum, the first capital of the Mongol Empire, which can be certainly deemed the best-known example of the more than 50 sites known to us. The proposed themes cover a diverse set of questions concerning environmental and climate changes, typology with regard to form and function, chronology, founders, material resources/labor acquisition/architecture, social fabric of the population, and mobility and seasonality. These themes will help to characterize the origins and trajectory of the Mongol period settlements. They also serve to provide a set of variables against which earlier and later approaches to settlement can be compared against.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36506.0