The honest labour of stone mounds: monuments of Bronze and Iron Age Mongolia as costly signals

Wright, Joshua

doi:10.1080/00438243.2017.1360791

Cited by 25 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 57 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This technique suggests a kind of experimentation with dental procedures rather than sophisticated knowledge of equine dentition. This pattern is consistent with other evidence for experimentation with key elements of pastoral subsistence during the Late Bronze Age (36), and suggests that genuine innovation in equine dental care was closely linked to broader pastoral social developments. The apparently delayed emergence of wolf tooth extraction in the archaeofaunal record shares striking parallels with technological developments in northeast Asian horse bits.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Origins of equine dentistry

Taylor

Bayarsaikhan

Tuvshinjargal

et al. 2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

From the American West to the steppes of Eurasia, the domestic horse transformed human societies, providing rapid transport, communication, and military power, and serving as an important subsistence animal. Because of the importance of oral equipment for horse riding, dentistry is an essential component of modern horse care. In the open grasslands of northeast Asia, horses remain the primary form of transport for many herders. Although free-range grazing on gritty forage mitigates many equine dental issues, contemporary Mongolian horsemen nonetheless practice some forms of dentistry, including the removal of problematic deciduous teeth and the vestigial first premolar ("wolf tooth"). Here, we present archaezoological data from equine skeletal remains spanning the past 3,200 y, indicating that nomadic dental practices have great antiquity. Anthropogenic modifications to malerupted deciduous central incisors in young horses from the Late Bronze Age demonstrate their attempted removal, coinciding with the local innovation or adoption of horseback riding and the florescence of Mongolian pastoral society. Horse specimens from this period show no evidence of first premolar removal, which we first identify in specimens dating to 750 BCE. The onset of premolar extraction parallels the archaeological appearance of jointed bronze and iron bits, suggesting that this technological shift prompted innovations in dentistry that improved horse health and horse control. These discoveries provide the earliest directly dated evidence for veterinary dentistry, and suggest that innovations in equine care by nomadic peoples 1150 BCE enabled the use of horses for increasingly sophisticated mounted riding and warfare.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Origins of equine dentistry

Taylor

Bayarsaikhan

Tuvshinjargal

et al. 2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The DMS study area in the second millennium BC is part of a burial tradition found throughout the Gobi region. These regional commonalities suggest long-standing connections between people, which were maintained by regular exchanges that allowed for uniform developments and some persistence of burial styles (Honeychurch & Amartusvhin 2011; Wright 2017; Makarewicz et al . 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The earliest Bronze Age culture of the south-eastern Gobi Desert, Mongolia

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whereas small plateaus in between rocky areas and outcrops can display smaller mounds, this is not where monumental burials are usually found. These large burial mounds likely served a signaling function and thus were supposed to be seen [21]. They are likely to be located in areas where people passed through.…”

Section: The Area Of Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping and Damage Assessment of “Royal” Burial Mounds in the Siberian Valley of the Kings

Caspari

2020

Remote Sensing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Valley of the Kings in Tuva Republic, southern Siberia, is arguably one of the most important archaeological landscapes in the eastern Eurasian steppes. Nonetheless, little information exists about the spatial characteristics and preservation conditions of this burial ground consisting of large "royal" mounds. We map the large monuments of the Uyuk Valley's northern river terrace and assess their state of preservation based on high-resolution optical satellite data. The burial site consists of several hundred mounds, over 150 of them with diameters of more than 25 m, the largest monuments are bigger than 100 m in diameter. This makes the Valley of the Kings in Tuva Republic one of the largest Early Iron Age burial sites in the Eurasian steppes. Unfortunately, around 92% of the large monuments are in bad condition, mostly due to looting.

show abstract

The honest labour of stone mounds: monuments of Bronze and Iron Age Mongolia as costly signals

Cited by 25 publications

References 57 publications

Origins of equine dentistry

Origins of equine dentistry

The earliest Bronze Age culture of the south-eastern Gobi Desert, Mongolia

Mapping and Damage Assessment of “Royal” Burial Mounds in the Siberian Valley of the Kings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About