HR: 15:00h
AN: PP33D-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Cultures and Climate: A Review of the Cultural Chronologies and Climate Sequences for Inner Asia.
AU: * Hall, M E
EM: mhall@berkeley.edu
AF: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton Bldg. UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720,
AB: While environmental determinism has fallen out of intellectual favor in archaeology, the role of climate change as a catalyst in cultural change is still debated in Anglo-American archaeology. Climate change is often seen as a trigger for cultural changes, accentuating trends already under way. In other cases, climate change is often seen as the primary driving force for cultural change. The purpose of this paper is to look at the absolute chronologies for the post-glacial, archaeological cultures in the Lake Hovsgol drainage of northern Mongolia, Lake Baikal in Siberia, and in the Altai-Sayan Mountains. In the case of northern Mongolia, a variety of dates for recently excavated archaeological sites in the Egiin Gol valley of northern Mongolia will be presented. The radiocarbon dates indicate that there is a shift in the burial/settlement patterns from the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (pre-500 BC) to the Xiong-nu confederacy (200 BC?-AD 200). For the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, burial sites and monumental architecture was found in the tributaries of the Egiin Gol river; in areas considered by current herders as being winter pasture areas. For the suceeding Xiong- nu period, settlements and cemeteries are in the flood plain of the Egiin Gol river. After the collapse of the Xiong- nu confederacy, burial/settlement shifts back to the tributaries of the Egiin Gol river. In the case of the Altai-Sayan, it is clear that a nomadic lifestyle based on horse nomadism is in place by 600 BC. The radiocarbon dates for the Kitoi, Serevo, and Glazkovo cultures of the Baikal basin will also be discussed. In all three cases, the dates for the archaeological cultures will be compared to the absolute dates for the climate sequences of these three areas. While the radiocarbon dates for the archaeological cultures may be problematic, the general trend is that cultural changes/trends precede climatic changes.
DE: 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
DE: 1699 General or miscellaneous
DE: 9320 Asia
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting