Long-Term Occupation and Seasonal Mobility in Mongolia: A Comparative Analysis of Two Communities

NOTICE: Admission to the ISAW Lecture Hall closes 10 minutes after the scheduled start time

An important aspect of the development of more complex forms of social organization was the emergence of larger more integrated communities. These complex societies frequently came into existence after the establishment of face-to-face sedentary agricultural life. However, many mobile pastoralist societies also exhibited complex features of social organization. To be sure, evidence of elaborate burials and large-scale communal projects have all been linked to such developments in the Eurasian Steppes. The question remains, however, under what circumstances can mobile pastoralists develop and sustain complex social organizations? This presentation compares Bronze and Iron Age settlement data as well as data from burial and ritual sites to try and understand under what circumstances pastoralists in the Khanuy Valley region of central Mongolia managed to develop complex social organizations while it does not seem to have been the case in the Khoton Lake region of western Mongolia. Preliminary results suggest that environmental conditions and stability of occupation, rather than simply continuity of occupation, played an important role. In addition, findings also suggest a need for caution when interpreting common archaeological indicators of mobility and residential fixedness—too often linked to specific types of monuments and the permanency of domestic features.

Jean-Luc Houle is an anthropological archaeologist whose research interests focus on the study of early complex societies with a particular emphasis on East Asia and the Eurasian steppe region. Particularly, his interests and methodological foci include: the origins and development of complex societies, landscape archaeology, regional settlement pattern studies, household archaeology, quantitative and spatial analysis, nomadic pastoralist socio-political organization, ethnoarchaeology, and ritual practices.

As senior co-PI of the Khanuy Valley Archaeology Project, Dr. Houle directs a multiscalar and multidisciplinary field research project in Mongolia, where he is studying the development of societal complexity among early mobile pastoralists of the Bronze and Iron Ages. This research comprises a specialized and complementary suite of analytical strategies that include regional survey and excavation of habitation sites, as well as the use of zooarchaeology, paleobotany and geoarchaeology (including new archaeometric methods). The project also includes a significant ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological component aimed at a better understanding of human-animal relationships and the relationship between humans and their environment. Every year Dr. Houle takes student volunteers to conduct archaeological, ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological fieldwork in the amazing steppes of Mongolia, which continues today to be inhabited by horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who have maintained much of their traditional lifeways.