Environmental and Cultural Dynamics in the Formation of Nomadic Culture

Abstract

Many cultural assets unearthed in archaeological excavations, elements that make up the culture of the settled communities such as technology, art, economy and, if any, can be revealed through written sources. However, in the case of nomadic communities, there is a prejudice that temporary shelters made of lightweight materials are “invisible communities” defined by only a small number of material items available for transportation. As a result of these prejudices, the nomadic culture has been tried to be understood either through negative elements in the settlements, written sources written by the settlers, or through ethnoarchaeological research. In the Archeology Department of Atatürk University Social Sciences Institute, under the supervision of Proffesor Dr Mehmet Işıklı, the "Archaeological Evidence of Nomadic Culture in the Southeast Anatolian Region: An Ethnoarchaeological Study" one of the important questions encountered during the studies carried out within the scope of the doctoral thesis titled " to what extent modern nomadic communities will reflect the cultures of the ancient period" has been.
 In this article, the question "what is culture" was chosen as the first step to start looking for answers to all these unknowns and questions, within the framework of the great transformations of humanity in the transition to a production economy, the elements that make up the culture were examined, and the elements of culture were discussed through the answers given by different scientists to this question.