Abstract

This dissertation examines the agropastoral practices in the Eurasian landmass between the 3rd millennium BCE to 1st millennium CE, focusing on characterizing how communities living in mountainous Inner Asia incorporated plant cultivation into their mobile agropastoralist lifestyle. I examine macrobotanical remains from key archaeological sites along the routes of the trans-Eurasian exchange of domesticated plants and animals and various technologies during the Bronze and Iron Ages. These sites include Chap, Kyrgyzstan, Tasbas, Kazakhstan, and Dingdong, Piyang, Jiweng, Kaerdong, and Bangga, located in Tibet. I use stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values of archaeological plant remains and macrobotanical assemblages to assess the labor (in the form of watering and manuring) dedicated to plant cultivation. Through this analysis, I investigate whether cultivation strategies travelled with the domesticated crops across the Inner Asian mountains or if these strategies were decoupled from the crops as they moved into new cultural and environmental settings. Findings indicate that communities developed localized crop management strategies, often taxa specific, rather than adopting a shared cultivation system. While these ancient communities shared similar crop – and livestock – compositions, they adapted and modified cultivation practices for each of their locales. This research provides insights into the broader implications of agricultural intensification on paleodietary reconstructions, the role of dynamic pastoral systems in shaping agricultural practices, and the localization of agropastoral strategies across Inner Asia. The results show the remarkable flexibility of agropastoralists living at high elevations who incorporated both mobile livestock husbandry and plant cultivation to succeed in sometimes fairly hostile environments for agricultural pursuits. Future research avenues are outlined to further explore the interplay between domesticated plants and animals and their cultural contexts. This work contributes to the understanding of how ancient agropastoral communities navigated the complexities of integrating new agricultural technologies and domesticated species, ultimately transforming both their local environments and the broader Eurasian agrarian and agropastoral history.

Committee Chair

Xinyi Liu

Committee Members

Michael Frachetti; Natalie Mueller; Tristram Kidder; Zhichun Jing

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Anthropology

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

5-5-2025

Language

English (en)

Author's ORCID

https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7244-1177

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