Abstract
Walled sites attributed to the Xiongnu steppe empire (2nd century b.c.–1st century a.d.) constitute the earliest investments in explicitly non-mortuary built environments among pastoralists of the Mongolian Steppe. These permanent constructions are important precedents to the medieval towns of subsequent steppe empires, yet very little of the complete layouts and surrounding remains of the large enclosures are understood. Our investigations of the walled site at Kherlen-Bars in eastern Mongolia are among the first surveys to fully document all aspects above and below ground across an entire Iron Age walled site area. In addition to detailed documentation of the large structures, our geomagnetic prospections and digital elevation modeling brought to light numerous small sub-surface and subtle-surface features that show such early walled sites, often deemed virtually empty, to be far more complex and diachronic in their formation processes and possible functions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 267-286 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Journal of Field Archaeology |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 21 Apr 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 19 May 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The field expedition in 2015 was funded by National Geographic Society (#W321-14). Geomagnetic and DGPS survey equipment was graciously loaned to us from the Graduate School of Human Development in Landscapes at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, and members of the Institut für Ur-und Frühgeschichte at CAU-Kiel gave assistance in the field. Radiocarbon dating of bone and charcoal samples were conducted at Poznań Radiocarbon Laboratory through funding from the ERC Consolidator Grant (#615040) for the “Nomadic Empires” Project at University of Oxford. Pedestrian surveys were conducted primarily by J. Wright, faunal analyses by T. Tüvshinjargal, and magnetic modelling by T. Wunderlich. We wish to thank D. Schultz for assistance in the field, as well as the National Museum of Mongolia and Tsagaan-Ovoo sum for helping facilitate many of the in-field project logistics. Lastly, our thanks to the extremely thorough comments from the editors and anonymous reviewers which greatly improved the clarity of the content. All remaining mistakes are of course ours.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- digital elevation modeling
- geophysics
- Inner Asia
- urbanism
- Xiongnu