Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia

Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Author: Michael D. Frachetti
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520256897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
"An innovative and theoretically sophisticated study that sheds much needed light on key issues in Central Asian archaeology."--J. Daniel Rogers, coeditor of The Archaeology of Global Change "An excellent resource on Eurasian steppe prehistory that utilizes a broad spectrum of data from various disciplines. This book will be important for archaeologists, ethnographers, historians, and geographers."--Sandra Olsen, editor of Horses and Humans: The Evolution of Human-Equine Relationships

Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia

Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Author: Michael D. Frachetti
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520256897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
"An innovative and theoretically sophisticated study that sheds much needed light on key issues in Central Asian archaeology."--J. Daniel Rogers, coeditor of The Archaeology of Global Change "An excellent resource on Eurasian steppe prehistory that utilizes a broad spectrum of data from various disciplines. This book will be important for archaeologists, ethnographers, historians, and geographers."--Sandra Olsen, editor of Horses and Humans: The Evolution of Human-Equine Relationships

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Author: Philip L. Kohl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139461990
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of Bronze Age societies of Western Eurasia through an investigation of the archaeological record. The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia outlines the long-term processes and patterns of interaction that link these groups together in a shared historical trajectory of development. Interactions took the form of the exchange of raw materials and finished goods, the spread and sharing of technologies, and the movements of peoples from one region to another. Kohl reconstructs economic activities from subsistence practices to the production and exchange of metals and other materials. Kohl also argues forcefully that the main task of the archaeologist should be to write culture-history on a spatially and temporally grand scale in an effort to detect large, macrohistorical processes of interaction and shared development.

Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia

Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Author: Michael David Frachetti
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520942698
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Offering a fresh archaeological interpretation, this work reconceptualizes the Bronze Age prehistory of the vast Eurasian steppe during one of the most formative and innovative periods of human history. Michael D. Frachetti combines an analysis of newly documented archaeological sites in the Koksu River valley of eastern Kazakhstan with detailed paleoecological and ethnohistorical data to illustrate patterns in land use, settlement, burial, and rock art. His investigation illuminates the practical effect of nomadic strategies on the broader geography of social interaction and suggests a new model of local and regional interconnection in the third and second millennia B.C.E. Frachetti further argues that these early nomadic communities played a pivotal role in shaping enduring networks of exchange across Eurasia.

Social Orders and Social Landscapes

Social Orders and Social Landscapes PDF Author: Charles W. Hartley
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527566110
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
Social Orders and Social Landscapes marks a new direction in research for Eurasian archaeology that focuses on how people lived in their local environment and interacted with their near and distant neighbours, rather than on overarching comparisons of archaeological culture complexes. Stemming from the 2005 University of Chicago Eurasian Archaeology Conference, the papers collected here reflect this new research agenda, though the way in which each author addressed the theme of the conference, and thus the book, was strikingly varied. This diversity arises out of the field’s intellectual flux driven by the principled engagement of the rich analytical traditions of the Soviet/CIS, Anglo-American, and European schools. Despite the variability in approaches and subject matter, several key themes emerged: 1) the reinterpretation culture categories by examining particular aspects of social life; 2) the role social memory plays in the production of landscape and place; 3) the influence of the built environment on societies; and 4) the ways in which economic considerations affect social orders and landscapes. The result is a book that helps to re-image Eurasia as a complex landscape fragmented by historically contingent and shifting ecological and social boundaries rather than a bounded mosaic of culture areas or environmental zones. “Scholarly research on Eurasia was transformed by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Entire areas and fields of research became accessible to European and American scholars for the first time, resulting in the emergence of new centers specializing in primary field investigations throughout the vast, politically transformed landmass of Eurasia. One such center is the University of Chicago that has recently sponsored two large international conferences on Eurasian archaeology. Social Orders and Social Landscapes is the product of the second Chicago conference held in spring 2005. The editors of the volume should be proud of their efforts that have resulted in such a broad ranging and prompt publication. The articles encompass a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeology, history, art history, palynology, and zooarchaeology; extend chronologically from Neolithic and Bronze Age times to the formation of national identity in Turkey in the early 20th century; and range geographically from Europe to China. Several articles reconstruct basic subsistence activities; others analyze distinctive settlement types and political and cultural frontiers, including the assimilation and emergence of new, self-defined ethnic groups and the selective adoption of new systems of religious belief. What unites this diverse collection is their consistent emphasis on the social construction of reality and the production of social landscapes and memories that altered perceptions of the physical world and mediated the practical activities that here have been convincingly reconstructed from the archaeological record. In so doing, rigid stereotypes are questioned and novel interpretations persuasively advanced. Early Bronze Age pastoralism on the south Russian steppes did not consist exclusively of herding animals nor was it combined, as it was later in the Iron Age, with the pursuit of agriculture; rather, D. Anthony and D. Brown suggest that at least in the Samara river valley the herding of animals occurred along side the intensive gathering of wild, nutritionally rich plants. The kalas of ancient Chorasmia are not cities, nor even proto-urban formations, but rather are large, heavily fortified enclosures meant to repel attacks of armed nomadic cavalry. They represent a continuation of a distinct Central Asian settlement pattern that began in the Bronze Age and that formed the center of a landscape divided into contiguous, self-contained oases. The Mongols not only herded livestock, but also farmed, fished, hunted, and traded throughout the vast area that they had conquered, uniting most of Eurasia into a single, economically integrated system. New perspectives proliferate throughout this richly detailed and extremely broad ranging collected volume.” — Phil Kohl, Professor of Anthropology and the Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College “ “Social Orders and Social Landscapes” is a stimulating addition to the still small literature in English making the rich datasets from the archaeology of Eurasia widely accessible to Western scholars. The authors of the eighteen chapters analyze data from China to the Mediterranean, from the fourth millennium BCE through the fourteenth century CE, with the tools of art and architectural history, text analysis, paleobotany and paleozoology, and anthropological theory, among others. The product of a conference at the University of Chicago, this book fulfils the goal of the graduate student organizers to apply interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the archaeology and history of the Eurasian landmass in local terms through a focus on “how people lived in their local environments.” In the decade and a half since the end of the Soviet Union, scholarly communication has broadened and the mutual influences have stimulated many new and thought provoking views on the Eurasian past. This book is an exemplary product of the new scholarly discourse.” — Karen S. Rubinson, Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University

Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia

Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia PDF Author: Bryan K. Hanks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521517125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Challenges current interpretations of social and cultural change in prehistoric Eurasia, through a thematic investigation of archaeological patterns.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean PDF Author: Barry W. Cunliffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199689172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
The story of the peoples of Eurasia, from the birth of farming to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. An immense historical panorama set on a huge continental stage, this is also the story of how humans first started building the global system we know today.

The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia

The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia PDF Author: Charles W. Hartley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139789384
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
For thousands of years, the geography of Eurasia has facilitated travel, conquest and colonization by various groups, from the Huns in ancient times to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the past century. This book brings together archaeological investigations of Eurasian regimes and revolutions ranging from the Bronze Age to the modern day, from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus in the west to the Mongolian steppe and the Korean Peninsula in the east. The authors examine a wide-ranging series of archaeological studies in order to better understand the role of politics in the history and prehistory of the region. This book re-evaluates the significance of power, authority and ideology in the emergence and transformation of ancient and modern societies in this vast continent.

The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages

The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages PDF Author: L. N. Kori?a?kova
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511269967
Category : Bronze age
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description


The Prehistory of the Silk Road

The Prehistory of the Silk Road PDF Author: E. E. Kuzmina
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812292332
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
In ancient and medieval times, the Silk Road was of great importance to the transport of peoples, goods, and ideas between the East and the West. A vast network of trade routes, it connected the diverse geographies and populations of China, the Eurasian Steppe, Central Asia, India, Western Asia, and Europe. Although its main use was for importing silk from China, traders moving in the opposite direction carried to China jewelry, glassware, and other exotic goods from the Mediterranean, jade from Khotan, and horses and furs from the nomads of the Steppe. In both directions, technology and ideologies were transmitted. The Silk Road brought together the achievements of the different peoples of Eurasia to advance the Old World as a whole. The majority of the Silk Road routes passed through the Eurasian Steppe, whose nomadic people were participants and mediators in its economic and cultural exchanges. Until now, the origins of these routes and relationships have not been examined in great detail. In The Prehistory of the Silk Road, E. E. Kuzmina, renowned Russian archaeologist, looks at the history of this crucial area before the formal establishment of Silk Road trade and diplomacy. From the late Neolithic period to the early Bronze Age, Kuzmina traces the evolution of the material culture of the Steppe and the contact between civilizations that proved critical to the development of the widespread trade that would follow, including nomadic migrations, the domestication and use of the horse and the camel, and the spread of wheeled transport. The Prehistory of the Silk Road combines detailed research in archaeology with evidence from physical anthropology, linguistics, and other fields, incorporating both primary and secondary sources from a range of languages, including a vast accumulation of Russian-language scholarship largely untapped in the West. The book is complemented by an extensive bibliography that will be of great use to scholars.

Social Memory and State Formation in Early China

Social Memory and State Formation in Early China PDF Author: Min Li
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107141451
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
A thought-provoking book on the archaeology of power, knowledge, social memory, and the emergence of classical tradition in early China.