About the Symposium

A symposium is being organized for February 2006 in the Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. This meeting will focus on the archaeological investigation of early complex societies in the Eurasian steppes. The symposium will host several international scholars, a number of American specialists, and University of Pittsburgh faculty, graduate students and affiliated scholars currently undertaking research in the steppe region. Presentations at the conference are by invitation and speakers will be asked to contribute discussions on specific questions and issues relevant to their area of specialization and research. All costs associated with travel and maintenance for the speakers will be covered by the University of Pittsburgh.

Format

The symposium presentations will be twenty minutes in length and there will be approximately five to six presentations within each of the four sessions. Sessions are organized according to specific research themes and presenters are asked to address these within their papers. Selected discussants will offer comments after the final presentation in each session and time also will be allotted for general discussion. A one and a half hour round-table meeting at the end of the second day of the symposium has been organized and four selected discussants will offer individual commentary before general discussion is opened. PowerPoint and slide technology will be made available for the presentations and additional information relating to this will be given later.

Pre-circulated Papers

Participants of the symposium are asked to submit an electronic version of full length research papers (first drafts) by January 1st, 2006 for pre-circulation. The suggested length of the papers is 5,000 - 8,000 words, excluding bibliography. The papers will be made available to participants, who will be provided with a password for internet access. A publication of the symposium is planned and authors will have the opportunity to revise their papers after the symposium before final submissions are collected for editing. Further information regarding this will be given during the meeting.

Focus of Symposium

Introduction

The investigation and explanation of the various trajectories of social change and complexity within world prehistory have been consistent aims within anthropologically oriented archaeology. However, such research has followed very different intellectual and methodological traditions around the world. For example, the Marxist inspired archaeology of the Soviet period, the influence of social anthropology on British archaeology, and the Americanist practice of ‘archaeology as anthropology’, all offer distinctive approaches to the definition and study of complexity within societies of the past. While major divergences have occurred within the foundations of archaeological investigation in recent decades, the overarching fact remains that the questions driving our research strategies and empirical investigations are inextricably connected with the identification and explanation of the structures and conditions which either provide for or contradict socio-cultural stability. This fact remains absolute, regardless of what variety of theoretical trend is employed. Another significant concern within world prehistory is the utilization of comparative perspectives. Such studies provide a crucial foundation for addressing the range of variation that exists for social organization and the various pathways to increasing complexity connected with ranked, hierarchical political structures. With these important points in mind, this symposium aims to bring together a number of specialists with backgrounds in anthropology, archaeology, and history in order to address key questions connected with the emergence of complex social orders in the third to first millennia BCE in the Eurasian steppe region. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union nearly fifteen years ago, the historical and comparative significance of prehistoric Eurasian steppe developments has been emphasized by numerous international scholars. No longer seen as closed geopolitical spheres, the territories of the former Soviet Union, and their traditions of scholarship in history and archaeology, are emerging as important new arenas for international collaboration and research and offer an extremely important realm for challenging the conventional theories and models developed through Western archaeological traditions. This symposium therefore takes aim not only at specific historical questions connected with the steppe region but also seeks to explore the dynamic intellectual relationships that currently exist between differing schools of thought in the archaeology of complex societies. The product of this will be the critical re-evaluation of contemporary understandings of late prehistoric/ proto-historic developments among Eurasian steppe societies and their interaction with neighboring territories in Europe, Central Asia, and China.

Participants are asked to develop their papers with two main considerations in mind. First, they are encouraged to formulate their presentations in order to contribute to the study of complex, hierarchical societies organized at the non-state or early empire/state levels. In this sense, the parameters of community and polity organization, and the strategies utilized by elites and other factions of social power, can be evaluated in light of the unique character of steppe social, political, economic, and environmental adaptations. It is expected that by approaching these important issues, the broader anthropological significance of Eurasian steppe prehistory may be highlighted and therefore contribute productively to global comparative studies. Second, the symposium will focus specifically on the Bronze and Iron Age periods of the central and eastern zones of the steppe region where University of Pittsburgh faculty and graduate students are currently engaged in fieldwork research. By bringing together a number of specialists currently working in the steppe and bordering territories, several crucial questions surrounding the investigation of early complex steppe societies may be addressed. The symposium will therefore be organized according to the following four main sessions: 1) Issues in the Emergence of Social Complexity; 2) Mining, Metallurgy and New Socio-Economic Foundations; 3) Theorizing Frontier Dynamics: China and the Eurasian Steppe; and 4) Trajectories of Hierarchy, Social Organization and Political Authority.

Suggested general issues to be examined through these sessions are:

Rise of early socio-cultural complexity among steppe communities through internal and external contact and change.
The rise of socio-economic complexity connected with the emergence of early metallurgical technology and its diffusion.
New approaches to the empirical modeling of social, technological and political developments among steppe pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities.
New perspectives on the dynamic interfaces created between state & non-state groups.
New field methods and strategies for investigating mobile pastoralist habitation and settlement.
Congruence of historical records and archaeological data for the examination of steppe polity organization and development.

Eurasian Steppe Symposium

About the Symposium

Format

Pre-circulated Papers

Focus of Symposium

Introduction

Contacts: