Session: #357

Regular session

Central Asia situated in the heart of Eurasia – between the Caspian Sea and Xinjiang has served as a major crossroad throughout human history, linking societies from Europe to East Asia. The most intense occupation of this region was initiated during the Early Holocene at which point multiple technologies and social networks foreshadowed long-term and subsequent occupation of this landlocked region. Despite a long history of dedicated research in the region, however, several questions circulate on points such as how to distinguish the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, when and how productive economies emerged in the Bronze Age or beforehand, and on suitable methodologies for locating early sites in the extreme environments of its high latitudes and mountainous regions. This session aims to facilitate a new dialogue concerned with the identity of social-technological-economic networks across the Mesolithic to Bronze Age while also considering the applicability of terms such as ‘margin,’ ‘center’ and ‘crossroads’ in Central Asian archaeology. Importantly, such considerations in a Central Asian context hold relevance at a European level for exploring the directionality, timing and context of migrations, core economic and material technologies, and belief systems which had lasting impacts on historical developments in both regions. We are particularly keen to see research that presents novel discoveries coming from excavations, new scientific findings from revisits to earlier research, and/or syntheses from big-data or pedestrian survey projects. We welcome papers that touch on material culture assemblages, human-environment reconstructions, and on bioarcheological and/or archaeological remains from macro- or micro-scale perspectives.

Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Mountains, Steppe, Extreme environments

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PaM

Paula Dupuy (Kazakhstan) ¹

Svetlana Shnayder (Russia) ²