Under the supervision of Dr. Robert D. Drennan, Jean-Luc Houle will carry out an archaeological settlement study in the Khanuy River Valley of central Mongolia in order to document the earliest complex societies of the region. It has long been thought that early complex societies in the Mongolian steppe (culminating in vast empires such as that of Genghis Khan) were built upon economic interdependence between mobile herding peoples and large populations of settled farmers. More recently this view has been challenged by those who see much more potential for the development of hierarchical social organization and large-scale political integration within the context of a mobile herding way of life.
In the Mongolian case this debate centers on the Iron Age Xiongnu (ca. 209 BCE to 93 CE) and whether this polity of mobile herders resulted from indigenous political processes or from interaction with sedentary agricultural states in China. Impressive Late Bronze Age (mid-second to mid-first millennia BCE) ritual and funerary monuments in central Mongolia have suggested to some that Xiongnu political integration grew from local roots in complex, hierarchical societies that predate regular interaction with large sedentary states in China. The interpretation of these monuments is controversial, however, and highly relevant direct evidence of social status, political authority, and economic specialization is lacking. Although the residential remains of these possibly highly mobile Late Bronze Age peoples are quite ephemeral, Mr. Houle has developed and field tested methodologies for recovering them. His research will apply that methodology to two 25 km zones, in order to map out all traces of human occupation, make estimates of the numbers of people occupying these zones, and evaluate the extent to which these monuments reflect regional centralization. Stratigraphic testing of some of the occupations located will produce larger samples of artifacts, as well as floral and faunal remains, enabling assessment of the degree of mobility, of subsistence strategies, of economic specialization, and of social ranking.
In addition to providing the doctoral candidate with training in the design, direction, and realization of archaeological research, the broader impacts of the research will include providing fundamental field experience to Mongolian and American undergraduate and graduate archaeology students who will assist during the collection and recording of data in the field. Public outreach in the field in Mongolia is a continuous and informal process. In such a dispersed and mobile population, there are few opportunities for formal public lectures and presentations, but visiting and conversing with herders and other travelers passing through is incessant, and this provides access to the major information network of central Mongolia, through which explanations of the nature and worth of scientific research into the past and of the importance of protecting cultural patrimony will ripple outward. In the capital city, where analysis of the materials recovered will be carried out, Ulaanbaatar University provides a venue for public lectures and presentations. Upon completion of the research, a website will be set up to communicate the results to the general public.
