Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T10:07:17.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Foreword: From Myth to Method: Advances in the Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2010

Bryan K. Hanks
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Katheryn M. Linduff
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Get access

Summary

In recent years, the archaeology of the Eurasian steppe has seen some remarkable advances. Up to a couple of decades ago, it seemed that little progress was being made, despite important archaeological discoveries in a number of relevant countries. The same rather simple models, based on an undifferentiated view of mobile steppe pastoralism and the notion of a short yet significant episode in which the domestication of the horse was achieved, had held sway since the early twentieth century. The valid contrasts emphasized in The Steppe and the Sown by Peake and Fleure (1928) led in the early work of Gordon Childe (1926) to a simplistic view of mounted nomad pastoralists, a view that has survived into recent times, although it was later reassessed by Childe himself (1950).

Today the picture is completely transformed, as the present volume emphasizes. In particular, recent discoveries have now allowed a clear differentiation to be established between the developments of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the steppes, in social and economic terms as much as in metallurgy. The development toward a pastoralist economy in the earlier Bronze Age, as well exemplified by the Sintashta culture of western Siberia with its chariot burials (Koryakova and Epimakhov 2007 : 66–80; Parzinger 2006 : 251–259, 338–342), was not accompanied by any conspicuous evidence of horse riding for military purposes, although horses are documented for drawing chariots as early as 2000 bce and were presumably ridden earlier than this for the purposes of herding (see Renfrew 1998).

Type
Chapter
Information
Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia
Monuments, Metals and Mobility
, pp. xv - xx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×