Continuity and Authority on the Mongolian Steppe: The Egiin Gol Survey 1997–2002

The first published archaeological survey of the Egiin Gol valley of Mongolia, spanning the last 30,000 years and centering on the integration of local sites and landscape

This is the first complete intensive regional archaeological survey report for Mongolia to be published. It presents the experiences and results of groundbreaking fieldwork that detected ephemeral steppe settlement sites, extensive monumental constructions, and changing land use that span the last 30,000 years, from the late Upper Paleolithic to the nineteenth century. Extensive illustrations of monuments and ceramics provide comparative data and local detail in an integrated landscape- and settlement-based approach to the prehistory and history of eastern Eurasia.

The authors examine the place of Egiin Gol in the Xiongnu and Early Turkic polities and reveal the historical landscape of Buddhist monasteries and farms, highlighting this region of northern Mongolia as a historical breadbasket. Throughout, the focus is on the local and immediate archaeology of the Egiin Gol valley, the impetus for change and continuity, and how sites and features worked together to create past cultural landscapes.

This volume is aimed at Eurasian and Mongolian specialists, archaeologists in general, landscape archaeologists, historians of East Asia and Eurasia, environmental historians, and agrarian studies scholars interested in the history and study of pastoralism, including development and rangeland management.

Distributed for the Yale Peabody Museum