Pastoral nomadic regional confederations, states, and empires have assumed a prominent place in the histories of the Eurasian steppe zone; however, anthropological theory devoted to understanding these political systems is still debated and relatively inchoate. A major question concerns the techniques of political integration that might have brought together dispersed mobile herders under the aegis of these complex, large-scale steppe polities. The first such polity in East Asia, the Xiongnu state (c. 250 BC–150 AD) of Mongolia, has been characterized as a polity built by mobile herders, but in fact the steppe populations of this period followed quite diverse lifeways. Most notably, the establishment of more permanent settlements for craft and agricultural production has complicated the typical narrative of the pastoral nomadic eastern steppe. This study considers ways to conceptualize these interesting variations in lifeway during the Xiongnu period and raises the question of how they might have promoted a novel Xiongnu political order. We analyze transformations within the Egiin Gol valley of northern Mongolia to better understand the organizational, productive, and settlement dynamics and present the first regional landscape perspective on the local transformations incurred by the creation of a Xiongnu agricultural hub. To understand these radical changes with respect to the long-term pastoral nomadic and hunting-gathering traditions of the valley’s inhabitants, Salzman’s flexibility-based model of multiresource pastoralism is of great use. Egiin Gol valley transformations indeed attest to a scale of political economy far beyond the bounds of this local area and suggest an innovative role for indigenous farming in Eurasian steppe polity building.
more »
« less
The earliest herders of East Asia: Examining Afanasievo entry to Central Mongolia
The Afanasievo world reportedly overlaps the borders of five nations including two countries of East Asia: Mongolia and China. Across these several regions, the first appearance of domestic herd animals (sheep, goat, cattle) and the initial practice of copper and bronze metallurgy are associated with Afanasievo communities. Since mobile pastoralism has long been a significant part of the Mongolian cultural tradition the question of when, where, and how Afanasievo groups entered Mongolia is of extreme interest to archaeologists. Over the past 50 years several important sites have been reported and analyzed but these are still little known among Western scholars. In this study we provide a brief overview of Afanasievo archaeology, its peripheries, and its recent analytical breakthroughs and then develop a unique perspective on the Afanasievo world from its farthest eastern edge in central Mongolia. We assess the different roles of migration and diffusion in the process of herd animal introduction and present two current hypotheses explaining the intensification of pastoralism in this region during the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC. We argue that the impact of Afanasievo entry into East Asia was a transformative process but must be understood in the context of significant innovations made by East Asian indigenous communities, eventually leading to a unique form of eastern steppe pastoralism in Mongolia.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1737687
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10284177
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Archaeological research in Asia
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 100264
- ISSN:
- 2352-2267
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-19
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
null (Ed.)Interactions between the solid Earth and climate system represent a frontier area for geoscientific research that is strongly emphasized in the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Science Plan. The continental margin of India adjoining the Arabian Sea offers a unique opportunity to understand tectonic-climatic interactions and the net impact of these on weathering and erosion of the Himalaya. Scientific drilling in the Arabian Sea is designed to understand the coevolution of mountain building, weathering, erosion, and climate over a range of timescales. The southwest monsoon is one of the most intense climatic phenomena on Earth. Its long-term development has been linked to the growth of high topography in South and Central Asia. Conversely, the tectonic evolution of the Himalaya, especially the exhumation of the Greater Himalaya, has been linked to intensification of the summer monsoon rains, as well as to plate tectonic forces. Weathering of the Himalaya has also been linked to long-term drawdown of atmospheric CO2 during the Cenozoic, culminating in the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. No other part of the world has such intense links between tectonic and climatic processes. Unfortunately, these hypotheses remain largely untested because of limited information on the history of erosion and weathering recorded in the resultant sedimentary prisms. This type of data cannot be found on shore because the proximal foreland basin records are disrupted by major unconformities, and depositional ages are difficult to determine with high precision. We therefore propose to recover longer records of erosion and weathering from the Indus Fan that will allow us to understand links between paleoceanographic processes and the climatic history of the region. The latter was partially addressed by Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 117 on the Oman margin, and further studies are proposed during IODP Expedition 353 (Indian Monsoon Rainfall) that will core several sites in the Bay of Bengal. Such records can be correlated to structural geological and thermochronology data in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau to estimate how sediment fluxes and exhumation rates change through time. The drilling will be accomplished within a regional seismic stratigraphic framework and will for the first time permit an estimation of sediment budgets together with quantitative estimates of weathering fluxes and their variation through time. Specific goals of this expedition include 1. Testing whether the timing of the exhumation of Greater Himalaya correlates with an enhanced erosional flux and stronger chemical weathering after ~23 Ma, 2. Determining the amplitude and direction of the environmental change at 8 Ma, and 3. Dating the age of the base of the fan and the underlying basement to constrain the timing of India-Asia collision. Drilling through the fan base and into the underlying basement in the proposed area will permit additional constraints to be placed on the nature of the crust in the Laxmi Basin (Eastern Arabian Sea), which has a significant bearing on paleogeographic reconstructions along conjugate margins in the Arabian Sea and models of continental breakup on rifted volcanic margins.more » « less
-
The late Mesozoic Era was a time of widespread crustal extension in eastern Asia resulting in both rift basin and metamorphic core complex formation. Two of the more recently documented examples of this extensional phase are the Ereendavaa and Buteel metamorphic core complexes (EMCC, BMCC). Both are located in northern Mongolia proximal to the Mongol Okhotsk Suture Zone (MOSZ). The MOSZ is a profound, yet enigmatic structure that formed due to closure of the Mongol-Okhotsk Ocean, a basin that separated the Siberian and North China cratons and intervening terranes of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt. Based on published work by others, the core complexes record NW-SE extension, cooling and deformation from c. 135 to 120 Ma. We present new data as part of a collaborative research project that aims to constrain the evolution of the MOSZ more broadly and its relationship to intracontinental deformation after suturing. Our methods include analysis of satellite imagery and digital elevation models with synthesis of field, (micro)structural, and geochronologic data with published maps and studies. Based on our findings, the EMCC likely extends several 10's of km to the NE. Satellite imagery and DEMs suggest large-scale corrugations along the N-flank consistent with NW-SE extension. To the SW of the EMCC, Early Cretaceous rift basins are associated with strong NE-SW oriented lineaments. We examined the BMCC along its SW mapped extent, an area for which no data were presented in prior publications; we confirmed the presence of a top-to-the-SE detachment fault. The EMCC and BMCC, like the Yagan-Onch Hayrhan MCC in southern Mongolia, have footwall rocks previously mapped as Precambrian that are, in large part, metamorphosed Paleozoic and Mesozoic igneous and sedimentary rocks. All three MCCs exhibit evidence for structural complexity, such as NE-SW trending lineations orthogonal to the NW-SE extension direction. As in S Mongolia, we hypothesize that the NE-SW lineations in the EMCC and BMCC formed during an earlier phase of shortening. The expression of the Early Cretaceous extension (rift basin vs. MCC) appears to be controlled by the inherited structure.more » « less
-
more » « less
Abstract As human‐induced change eliminates natural habitats, it impacts genetic diversity and population connectivity for local biodiversity. The South African Cape Floristic Region (CFR) is the most diverse extratropical area for plant biodiversity, and much of its habitat is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. There has long been great interest in explaining the underlying factors driving this unique diversity, especially as much of the CFR is endangered by urbanization and other anthropogenic activity. Here, we use a population and landscape genetic analysis of SNP data from the CFR endemic plant
Leucadendron salignum or “common sunshine conebush” as a model to address the evolutionary and environmental factors shaping the vast CFR diversity. We found that high population structure, along with relatively deeper and older genealogies, is characteristic of the southwestern CFR, whereas low population structure and more recent lineage coalescence depict the eastern CFR. Population network analyses show genetic connectivity is facilitated in areas of lower elevation and higher seasonal precipitation. These population genetic signatures corroborate CFR species‐level patterns consistent with high Pleistocene biome stability and landscape heterogeneity in the southwest, but with coincident instability in the east. Finally, we also find evidence of human land‐usage as a significant gene flow barrier, especially in severely threatened lowlands where genetic connectivity has been historically the highest. These results help identify areas where conservation plans can prioritize protecting high genetic diversity threatened by contemporary human activities within this unique cultural UNESCO site. -
As a consequence of the growth of accretionary orogenic belts in central Asia, the high elevation of the East Sayan Mountains concomitant with the plutonic activities in Jom-Bolok and Azas Plateau volcanic fields provide a rare opportunity to unravel lithospheric deformation induced by large-scale tectonic processes such as the passage of thermal plumes. Here we use receiver functions (RFs) to obtain high-resolution images of the 410 km (d410) and 660 km (d660) discontinuities and to measure mantle transition zone (MTZ) thickness. The average apparent depression of the d410 and d660 for a circular area under northern Mongolia and East Sayan are 14 km and 51 km respectively, leading to a significant thicker-than-normal MTZ with a mean value of 37 km. Our results, when incorporated with previous geochemical characteristics, suggest heterogeneous deep mantle materials highlighted by the great depression of the d660, revealing that possible foundered lithospheric remnants have dripped into the MTZ beneath the East Sayan Mountains. Negative thermal anomalies generated by the recycled lithosphere in the MTZ elucidate the prominent lateral undulation of the MTZ discontinuities, and a MTZ thinning beneath the southwest part of the study area is ascribed to the upward small-scale mantle convection initiated by the foundered lithospheric materials. We suggest that the descending lithosphere is due to the hot mantle plumes interacting with base of the mantle lithosphere which provided a viable perspective for the origin of the widespread magmatisms with distinct geochemical signatures in the region.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2021.100264
