Paper short abstract:

In the valley of Sazin there are two wholly different forms of settlement: one, perched on a spur above the valley, being a ruin that has been deserted for centuries; the other, amid the fields in the valley floor, is still inhabited. The deserted form is echoed by a settlement on a hilltop in the neighbouring valley of Harban. The contrast can be set in the context of what the Sazinis know about their past, and their present settlement related to their social organisation.

Paper long abstract:

Sazin is one of the fertile lateral valleys south of the Indus in the extreme Western Himalayas, inhabited by Shin, a Dardic people. The present settlement, in the centre of the terraced valley floor, is fortified on a roughly square plan, and organised in a series of courtyards and alleyways. Above the valley on a spur to the west are the ruins of a settlement organised on a concentric oval plan. The Sazinis regard this as their earlier settlement antedating their conversion to Islam, apparently in the 18th century. Its form can be understood in relation to a sole example still in use, in the next valley to the east, Harban, built around a steep hilltop. The present village of Sazin is clearly related in form to its social organisation in terms of named factions and family descent, and also the segregation of women. It also implies a different relation to the surrounding terraced fields and agricultural work. The advantage of Sazin as a case study is that, alone among these valleys, it is occupied by a single village, even if modern accretions are now obscuring the original plan.