On the Periphery of the Iron Age World System: “Animal Style Art” in Southeastern Kazakhstan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "World-Systems and Globalization in Archaeology: Assessing Models of Intersocietal Connections 50 Years since Wallerstein’s “The Modern World-System”" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The commodification of aesthetic traditions in the Eurasian steppe world may be explored as a method for tracing the economic and political spheres of the larger Eurasian World System in the first millennium BCE. This paper will address the question of whether Scythian “animal style art” was part of a circulatory system manipulated by peripheral “nomadic” groups to perpetuate socio-political interests and territorial claims. The case study from the Talgar region of Southeastern Kazakhstan examines objects found at settlement sites and in funerary contexts of the Saka culture. A carnelian bead, a bronze amulet, and a carved bone disk found at Iron Age settlements suggest long-distance commodity trade across a proto-Silk road. In the nearby Issyk burial mound of Golden Warrior, the splendid gold foil, plaques, and headdresses convey notions of political and status emulation for a nomadic elite within a larger political arena of competitive nomadic groups. Traditionally, discussions of Eurasian animal style art have been the intellectual domain of art historians and archaeologists. This paper extends the discussion of “animal-style art” to include a world-systems approach. The bigger question is whether a visual trope—an aesthetic tradition—can be examined through the lens of world-systems analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• World-Systems and Globalization in Archaeology: Assessing Models of Intersocietal Connections 50 Years since Wallerstein’s “The Modern World-System”   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38467.0