Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Development of Ceramic Technology in the Eastern Eurasian Steppe Zone

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Prof. Michael Frachetti, Paula Doumani will conduct archaeological excavations and pottery analyses at the Bronze Age settlement of Tasbas. Tasbas, located in the Dzhungar Mountains of southeastern Kazakhstan, was occupied by mobile pastoral populations around 4000 years ago. The site includes resident structures, rock art, and a small cemetery. Based on Tasbas' time of occupation, cultural material, and its subsistence economy, the site is among the early examples for specialized mobile pastoralism in central Eurasia. Research focusing on pottery technology among Bronze Age populations in central Eurasia is important for a number of reasons. First, technology gives us insight into community bonds and society. Technology and production among non-hierarchical societies, specifically, can speak to the larger issue of how group identity and society is reproduced outside of centralized systems of authority. Second, the study of technology provides insight into group interaction, socio-economic change and community learning. Ms. Doumani's research offers one of the few studies worldwide that unite small-scale production technology among pastoralists with the study of interaction, socio-economic change, and identity. The Bronze Age was a time of vast communication across the Eurasian continent. In the central Eurasian steppe zone, this period marks the beginning of geographically widespread mobile pastoralism, intensified regional interaction, and technological innovations across a range of material media, such as pottery. The diffusion of material technologies was a principal socio-economic integrator among these early pastoralists. The archaeology shows extraordinary stylistic and technological consistencies in the pottery across large geographic territories. But, how the region's societies came to share these traditions is a topic that is still poorly understood. Ms. Doumani will recover and analyze data to interpret which pottery technologies demonstrate long-term community bonds and production, and which pottery technologies demonstrate bonds with populations elsewhere in Eurasia. Specifically, she proposes - and will test for evidence - that technology will show: socio-economic interaction, how artisans transfer community practices, and productive systems at the local and extra-local scale. In addition to its academic merit, this project will assist in both American and Kazakh graduate student training. Training opportunities will span a number of archaeological subfields, including material, plant, animal, and human remain analyses. The project will provide employment to Kazakh individuals living in a remote rural area of Kazakhstan, and opportunities for the community members to learn about archaeology in general. Furthermore, these activities will increase local awareness of scientific archaeological field and analytical techniques. Results of the research will be widely disseminated to the academic and public community through presentation at professional conferences and through published papers in peer-edited journals. The public will also be able to access the data, maps, and photographs generated in the course of the research via open source databases operated through Washington University.