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Paper abstract:

Nomadic pastoralism has historically been portrayed as a lifeway and subsistence strategy that is mysterious and romantic – and unfortunately static (Porter 2012; Myadar 2011). This ongoing narrative in which pastoralists are perceived as reenacting ancestral behavior without modification does not provide space for these pastoralists communities to showcase their capacity to be both flexible and dynamic; however, ethnographic sources and the archaeological record provide a large collection of evidence that prove just that (Salzman 1972; Frachetti 2012; Honeychurch 2014). For this paper, we will be focusing on the ways in which the nomadic pastoralist communities from the Tarvagatai Valley in north-central Mongolia have reconceived and recreated their landscapes throughout over three thousand years of continuous occupation, from the Bronze Age (1800 – 800 BCE) to the Mongol Era (13th-14th centuries CE). The environmental and material records of this valley speak to the dynamic and changing uses and relationships embodied in the domestic spaces, monuments, and spaces in between. Through this investigation of the reconceptualization of space, we are able to touch on how the construction of a landscape connects to larger themes of economy, subsistence, socio-political organizations, and social networks. Landscape in this view is co-constructed by humans, non-humans, and the physical space itself through the process of placemaking. Placemaking, or the anchoring of different emotions, memories, and practices to specific places in the physical world, may be related to culturally significant secular and ritual activities, or they may be the culmination of daily practices and interactions with the world around them (Ashmore 2014; Maher 2019). Yet the actions and meanings behind placemaking are culturally relevant, and by understanding how the location, construction, and use of these places in the larger conceived landscape changes through time, we can understand how these pastoralists communities were able to externally express their dynamism and flexibility. Excavation and geophysical and pedestrian surveys of Tarvagatai Valley provides the oppurtunity to bring diverse time periods in conversation to demonstrate the continuity and change in placemaking practices.

Ashmore, Wendy

2014 On Ancient Placemaking. In Of Rocks and Water: an Archaeology of Place, ed. by Ömür Harmansah, pp. 40-46. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Frachetti, Michael D.

2012 Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Non uniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia. Current Anthropology 53(1):2.

Honeychurch, William

2014 Alternative Complexities: The Archaeology of Pastoral Nomadic States. Journal of Archaeological Research 22:277-326.

Maher, Lisa A.

2019 Persistent Place-Making in Prehistory: the Creation, Maintenance and Transformation of an Epipalaeolthic Landscape. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 26:998-1083

Myadar, Orhon

2011 Imaginary Nomads: Deconstructing the Representation of Mongolia as a Land of Nomads. Inner Asia 13(2):335–362

Porter, A.

2012 Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Salzman, Phillip C.

1972 Multi-resource Nomadism in Iranian Baluchistan. In Perspectives on Nomadism, edited by William Irons and N. Dyson-Hudson, pp. 60–68. E. J. Brill, Leiden.