Under the direction of Dr. Fredrik Hiebert at the University of Pennsylvania, Michael Frachetti will conduct comprehensive archaeological survey and archaeological excavations in the Koksu River Valley of Eastern Kazakhstan. This work will serve as the basis for his doctoral dissertation, in which he is developing new models to explain the emergence of pastoral nomadism during the Bronze Age in Central Asia. Humans have inhabited the steppe regions of Eurasia for more than 10,000 years. In the Western Eurasian steppes, sheep, goats, cattle, and horses were domesticated by the 4th millennium BC, and nomadic pastoralism (as a distinct way of life) is thought to have emerged from settled agricultural contexts in western Eurasia during the 1st millennium BC. In contrast, the nature and evolution of mobile pastoralism during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age in the Eastern Eurasian Steppe Zone remains generally unexplained. More specifically, the ambiguity in identifying the factors that distinguish a "nomadic" adaptation from any other pastoral lifestyle in this region has resulted in a scholarly assumption that some form of nomadic pastoralism characterized the ancient political economy of the steppes, without a clear archaeological definition of "nomadism" in a prehistoric context. Thus, the primary objective of Mr. Frachetti's project is to understand the ecological and social conditions that affected the strategies of Bronze Age groups in prehistory, by formalizing a new landscape methodology for studying mobile societies. Frachetti suggests that the main stumbling block in accurately understanding prehistoric nomadism (as substantially different from ethnographic cases) is that site-based archaeological studies of nomadic camps have been unable to provide a useful framework for discerning the patterned lifeway of mobile pastoralists. The Koksu River Valley is particularly well suited for new studies of Bronze Age nomadic lifeways since it contains a rich archaeological record, as well as sharp contrasts in seasonal climate and resources. Frachetti proposes an archaeological approach that considers the habitation ecology, the geography of ritual and ideological features, and the associations between archaeological monuments, landscape manipulation, and marking of group or individual identity, as aspects of life by which nomadic pastoralism fundamentally differs from other political economies. Through detailed archaeological survey and excavation, environmental sampling, spatial analysis, and GIS simulation, landscape archaeology parses mobile pastoralism into various defining elements that are systemically related, though temporally and culturally contingent and unique. He suggests that ground-up modeling of various kinds of landscapes (ecological, ideological, political etc.) will more accurately depict the complex factors that conditioned pastoral strategies during prehistory. Conceived in this way, the landscape approach serves as the vital link between theoretical questions concerning nomadic strategies at different places and times, and the analytical techniques available to archaeologists for discerning mobile pastoralism in prehistory. The proposed Djungar Mountains Archaeology Project will make broad contributions to archaeological theory and method, as well as provide new data. Most importantly, it will provide a grounded model of the development of pastoral nomadism in Eastern Central Asia during the Bronze Age. At the broader level, Frachetti's collaborative project will foster international relationships between American and Kazakh archaeologists, and open the door for future relationships between scientists from the United States and other Central Asian republics.
