This collaborative project between Western Kentucky University and the National Museum of Mongolia aims to understand the nature of the social and economic organization of Bronze and Iron Age societies of Mongolia through the use of regional survey and settlement archaeology. This year we are moving the project to the Altai region of western Mongolia where we will also be collaborating with the Smithsonian Institution and ETSU who are investigating the region’s rock art and ritual landscape. Located in the grasslands of western Mongolia, the research area is dotted with impressive stone built burial and ritual sites dating to the second and first millennia BCE, and continues to be inhabited by horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who have maintained much of their traditional lifeways.

We will live in tents and “gers” (Mongolian traditional tent houses) amongst local nomads who visit the archaeological field camp on a daily basis. Participants on the project have many opportunities to meet local nomadic peoples and visit them in their gers. Participants must bring their own camp gear and supplies. Hired cooks will be responsible for buying and preparing all of the food consumed and cleaning up following meals.

The 2012 field season will include regional survey, ethnographic research and excavation of habitation sites. There will also be opportunities to work on the Smithsonian and ETSU’s rock art and deer stone project. Participants will receive training in proper survey methods, ethnographic interviews, and unearthing and documenting materials. Participants will also have the opportunity to work with the artifactual material as well as with the project’s zooarchaeologist, cartographer and lithics specialist.

Participants need no special training, but should be prepared for physical activity and wilderness camping for extended periods of time. We will live in tents and “gers” (Mongolian traditional tent houses) without electricity and plumbing. Access to water for bathing and drinking will be a river nearby the campsite. The diet will be essentially meat based (lots of sheep!). The most important things you need for this project are patience, a good sense of humor; and the ability to adapt to radically different cultures and environments.

 

Contact Person

Jean-Luc Houle,

PhDAssistant Professor Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology

Western Kentucky University

1906 College Heights Blvd. #61029 Bowling Green,

KY 42101-1029

270-745-5910

jean-luc.houle@wku.edu

 Western Kentucky University and National Museum of Mongolia

Houle, Jean-Luc, "‘Socially Integrative Facilities’ and the Emergence of Societal Complexity on the Mongolian Steppe." In Monuments, Metals and Mobility: Trajectories of Complexity in the Late Prehistory of the Eurasian Steppe, edited by Bryan K. Hanks, and K. M. Linduff. Cambridge, 2009.

Allard, F. and D. Erdenebaatar, "Khirigsuurs, Ritual and Mobility in the Bronze Age of Mongolia." Antiquity. 79(305): 547-563. 2005.

Volkov, V., V., "Early Nomads of Mongolia." In Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Iron Age, edited by J. Davis-Kimball, V. A. Bashilov and L. T. Yablonski. 319-333. Berkeley, California, 1995.