Mobility, Foodways, and Ancient Statecraft in the Gobi-Steppe of Mongolia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Steppe by Steppe: Advances in the Archaeology of Eastern Eurasia" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From the appearance of monumental traditions in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1500–1000 BC) through the emergence of the Xiongnu state (ca. 250 BC–150 AD), populations of the semiarid Gobi-steppe of Mongolia underwent a series of dramatic transitions. These changing dynamics altered how people interacted with and moved within the landscape, transformed subsistence and habitation practices, and spurred the development of inter- and intraregional political complexity. Investigation of shifting mobility patterns and foodways provides concomitant throughlines for these transitions, linking local and regional changes in community-level organization to better understand the position of Gobi-steppe populations in the rise of the first nomadic state in eastern Eurasia. This paper integrates several lines of novel biomolecular evidence (stable and radiogenic isotopes, lipid residue analysis, proteomics) from the Gobi-steppe of southeastern Mongolia to chart diachronic changes in human and livestock movement and subsistence during the Late Bronze Age, the Early Iron Age (ca.1000–400 BC), and the Xiongnu period. These data are discussed in relation to what is currently known about the development of cultural and political complexity in Mongolia, with specific focus on what regional changes in mobility and foodways can tell us about the formation and structure of the broader Xiongnu state.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Steppe by Steppe: Advances in the Archaeology of Eastern Eurasia   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41567.0