Commoners and Elites in Southeast Kazakhstan: Kurgans and Settlements of the Iron Age society

The spatial distribution of Iron Age kurgan and settlement sites from the Talgar alluvial fan (ca. 550 sq km) derived from survey reconnaissance and Soviet period site inventories indicates the presence of both commoner graves and elite kurgan burials. The GIS database of the Talgar sites also includes valuable information such as the natural hydrological system, dated geological terraces, and other important topographic features. Our goal is to model a socio-natural system that describes the Iron Age socio-economic agro-pastoral system and its demographic components. In addition to understanding the relationship between the natural-physical landscape and a mortuary and settlement landscape, we also wish to set the foundation for understanding social hierarchy and the nature of commoner-elite relations.
This mortuary landscape, often robbed in antiquity and destroyed by Soviet agriculture, lacks information on individual burial inventories or skeletal material. Therefore our model relies upon kurgan size dimensions, locations, and density counts in order to model the ancient demography of the Talgar region and its surrounding environs. Future research in Talgar and neighbouring alluvial fans will test demographic models for: (1) population pressure on farming and herding resources; (2) territorial boundaries that define socio-political units within nomadic confederacies; and (3) the rise of social hierarchy within circumscribed regions such as the Talgar fan and its surrounding areas.
By focusing upon landscape features, burial mounds and graves as demographic indicators, new approaches can be developed for modeling changing social landscapes across a branch of the Silk route. This circumscribed region can serve as the first step for building a regional settlement system that incorporates demography, social hierarchy, political organization of territories, and ideological and ritual landscapes that cross-cut diverse regions through an aesthetic known as ‘animal-style’ art.

Author - Dr. Chang, Claudia, Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, United States of America (Presenting author)
Co-author(s) - Tourtellotte, Perry, Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, United States of America