Session: #350

Discussion session (with formal abstracts)

As with our peers worldwide, archaeologists with a research focus on central Eurasia have had to deal over the past two years with lapses in fieldwork and funding, lost opportunities for professional networking, and to various degrees, stagnation in overall research development. Notably, these setbacks have come at a pivotal time in the evolution of the region’s archaeology, as emerging highly specialized laboratory and bioarchaeological analyses are entangling with deeply-rooted methodological and epistemological approaches to studying the past. Our discussion session is intended to set the foundation for (re)integrating the scholarly community of central Eurasian archaeologists by (re)opening dialogue across the fissures brought on by two years of fragmented, punctuated research. Focusing on the pre-Silk Roads periods in an area spanning the Caspian Sea to Xinjiang in far western China, we bring together archaeologists with expertise in a particular research method/ methodology, geographical area, and/or intellectual approach – with the goal to (re)integrate colleagues and their various strands of data and knowledge within a holistic, regional perspective. Our open discussion will be anchored in the public abstracts of fifteen participants who will address the current state of – and next steps for – archaeology in the region, and interrogate the mutual interests driving forward our shared research agendas. Ultimately, our aim is to provide a forum to communicate insights that stem from specialist knowledge in our field, as well as a backdrop for constructive ongoing dialogue as the discipline of archaeology in central Eurasia continues to unfold in the 21st century.

central Eurasia, research methods, knowledge production, regional perspective

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Lynne Rouse (Germany) ^1,2

Paula Dupuy (Kazakhstan) ³