Urbanism in Western Medieval Central Asia: Dynastic Jewels and Dynamic Networks

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 ninth to thirteenth centuries in the western Eurasian steppe and Central Asia were a period of intensive urban growth. Cities such as Bukhara and Marv boasted large populations in the hundreds of thousands, were home to large communities of scientific and religious scholars, and were transformed by large-scale construction, commonly funded by the ruling dynasties. In addition to this intensive form of urbanism, this period saw the emergence of a smaller scale, extensive urbanism. This settlement pattern is expressed in small but dense sites located in proximity to raw material sources, and trade routes. As opposed to the large cities of this period, these communities are primarily located at sites that do not show evidence of previous permanent occupation, and appear to have been abandoned in the thirteenth century. This paper examines these two forms of urban settlement, and the economic and ideological underpinnings of their development. The medieval period saw the spread of Islam across Central Asia, and the fluorescence of market networks in materials from iron weapons to peaches. Here we present multidisciplinary evidence from burials, architecture, and botanical remains that shows how religion and trade encouraged the growth of these two types of urbanism.

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): 36507.0