Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Ancient Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes on the South Side of Lake Issyk-Kul: Preliminary Surveys of the Juuku Valley and Lower Kizil Suu Valley, Archaeobotanical Results of Three Stratigraphic Profiles, and GIS Modeling of Iron Age in Lower Kizil Suu

Version 1 : Received: 15 May 2022 / Approved: 17 May 2022 / Online: 17 May 2022 (03:29:22 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Chang, C.; Ivanov, S.S.; Tourtellotte, P.A.; Spengler, R.N., III; Mir-Makhamad, B.; Kramar, D. Ancient Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes on the South Side of Lake Issyk-Kul: Long-Term Diachronic Analysis of Changing Patterns of Land Use, Climate Change, and Ritual Use in the Juuku and Kizil Suu Valleys. Land 2022, 11, 902. Chang, C.; Ivanov, S.S.; Tourtellotte, P.A.; Spengler, R.N., III; Mir-Makhamad, B.; Kramar, D. Ancient Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes on the South Side of Lake Issyk-Kul: Long-Term Diachronic Analysis of Changing Patterns of Land Use, Climate Change, and Ritual Use in the Juuku and Kizil Suu Valleys. Land 2022, 11, 902.

DOI: 10.3390/land11060902

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to present results of preliminary archaeological research on the south side of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. We test the hypothesis that agropastoral land use changed over four millennia from the Bronze Age through the ethnographic Kirghiz period due to economic, socio-political, and religious changes in the prehistoric and historic societies of this region. Our research objectives are to: (1) describe and analyze survey results from Lower Kizil Suu Valley; (2) discuss the results of radiometric and archaeobotanical samples taken from three stratigraphic profiles from three settlements from the Juuku Valley, including these chronological periods: the Wusun period (200 to 400 CE), the Qarakhanid period (1100 to 1200 CE), and the ethnographic Kirghiz period (1700 to 1900 CE); and (3) conduct preliminary GIS spatial analyses on the Iron Age mortuary remains (Saka and Wusun period). This research emerges out of the first archaeological surveys conducted in 2019 - 2021 and includes the Lower Kizil Suu alluvial fan; it is an initial step toward developing a model for agropastoral land use for upland valleys of the Inner Tian Shan Mountains.

Keywords

archaeological landscapes; Iron Age; Medieval period; agriculture; pastoralism; vertical zonation, Issyk-Kul Lake; archaeobotany; GIS mapping

Subject

ARTS & HUMANITIES, Archaeology

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