Nomadic Alternatives: Forming the State on Horseback

Honeychurch, William

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-1815-7_8

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Collections at this site also yielded a number of artifacts suggestive of higher-status denizens, including coins from the Han Dynasty, lamellar armor pieces, bronze horse harnessing gear, and iron working slag-all recovered within the same sector of the settlement. There is also a slightly higher incidence of imported pottery found at both EGS 36 and 297-99 based on neutron activation analysis (INAA) [68]. From survey projects in neighboring valleys, we now know that the Xiongnu landscape of Egiin Gol is unique and the large cemetery sites and substantial settlements of our study area do not occur in areas 20-30 km to the north [113], indicating a special centrality in the greater region for the Egiin Gol valley.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The full dataset for the Egiin Gol Survey project (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)2002) is available, including site descriptions, testing and excavations, artifacts recovered, and dating methods [61]. Although analysis and especially radiocarbon dating of these contexts for all periods is ongoing, the archaeological sites used here to represent the valley's Bronze and Early Iron Age (BEIA, c. 1200-300 BC) and Xiongnu period (c. 250 BC-150 AD) are those reviewed and vetted by the co-directors of the original survey [68][69][70]. BEIA habitations (n = 11) tend to be smaller in average size (0.19 ha) and are distributed mostly along tributary valleys with a few sites in the main Egiin Gol valley.…”

Section: Egiin Gol Landscape Analysis: Materials Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another possibility might have been grain transfers from the known Xiongnu farming center at Ivolga in the Transbaikal region only a few hundred kilometers northeast of Egiin Gol. Both hypotheses were rejected by archaeologists working in the valley based on two observations: Egiin Gol is in the traditional 'breadbasket' of Mongolia's dry-farmed agricultural sector and several Xiongnu period habitation sites have been recorded in or near contemporary plowed field plots [68][69][70]. Given this analogical evidence, a GIS analysis using low-resolution geographical data (e.g., 500 m NDVI) did indeed suggest that Xiongnu settlement was consistent with access to high quality farming locales [8].…”

Section: Cereal Grains In Mongolia-background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiresource Pastoralism, Dynamic Foodways, and Ancient Statecraft in Mongolia

Honeychurch,

Amartuvshin,

Wright

et al. 2023

Land

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Pastoral nomadic regional confederations, states, and empires have assumed a prominent place in the histories of the Eurasian steppe zone; however, anthropological theory devoted to understanding these political systems is still debated and relatively inchoate. A major question concerns the techniques of political integration that might have brought together dispersed mobile herders under the aegis of these complex, large-scale steppe polities. The first such polity in East Asia, the Xiongnu state (c. 250 BC–150 AD) of Mongolia, has been characterized as a polity built by mobile herders, but in fact the steppe populations of this period followed quite diverse lifeways. Most notably, the establishment of more permanent settlements for craft and agricultural production has complicated the typical narrative of the pastoral nomadic eastern steppe. This study considers ways to conceptualize these interesting variations in lifeway during the Xiongnu period and raises the question of how they might have promoted a novel Xiongnu political order. We analyze transformations within the Egiin Gol valley of northern Mongolia to better understand the organizational, productive, and settlement dynamics and present the first regional landscape perspective on the local transformations incurred by the creation of a Xiongnu agricultural hub. To understand these radical changes with respect to the long-term pastoral nomadic and hunting-gathering traditions of the valley’s inhabitants, Salzman’s flexibility-based model of multiresource pastoralism is of great use. Egiin Gol valley transformations indeed attest to a scale of political economy far beyond the bounds of this local area and suggest an innovative role for indigenous farming in Eurasian steppe polity building.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Egiin Gol Landscape Analysis: Materials Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cereal Grains In Mongolia-background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiresource Pastoralism, Dynamic Foodways, and Ancient Statecraft in Mongolia

Honeychurch,

Amartuvshin,

Wright

et al. 2023

Land

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“…Centralized, more coercive mechanisms may have developed to organize those involved in some of Wari's distant interactions with foreigners (e.g. Honeychurch 2015). If true, the seeds of the state were sown by tinkering with novel political forms that, at least initially, remained unacceptable at home.…”

Section: Ayllus and Wari State-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ayllus, Ancestors and the (Un)Making of the Wari State

Jennings

Berquist²

2022

CAJ

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At the time of the Spanish invasion, central Andean society was organized around ayllus. These extensive social units, bound together by kinship, reciprocity, land claims, honoured ancestors and other criteria, are an example of the kin-based sodalities that have long been seen in political science as impediments to state development. Class should replace kin when large and complex polities like the Inca Empire form, and groups like the ayllu should fade away. This article seeks to re-evaluate the role played by kin-based sodalities in early state formation and expansion through a case study of the Wari State (ce 600–1000). We argue that the decades-long development of ayllus was a reaction to incipient urbanization, surging interregional interaction and the other challenges associated with Wari's rise. Ayllu development created a more heterarchical political structure that would endure some 200 years into the polity's existence. Elite efforts to consolidate power in the ninth century ce ultimately led to the polity's decline and highlight the need to develop more dynamic models of urbanization and state formation in the Andes and elsewhere.

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Nomadic Alternatives: Forming the State on Horseback

Cited by 2 publications

References 32 publications

Multiresource Pastoralism, Dynamic Foodways, and Ancient Statecraft in Mongolia

Multiresource Pastoralism, Dynamic Foodways, and Ancient Statecraft in Mongolia

Ayllus, Ancestors and the (Un)Making of the Wari State

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