ACMS Speaker Series
Tracing the Bronze-Iron Age Transition: Preliminary Results of Fieldwork from Bayankhongor aimag
| | Speaker: Bryce Lowry
5:30 PM, Tuesday - October 27th, 2015, American Corner, Ulaanbaatar public library
Although recent advances in archaeological research on the wider steppe have uncovered important social and economic trajectories of steppe communities, the political economy of Late Bronze -Early Iron Age (ca. 1500-500 BCE) Mongolia remains poorly understood except in broad strokes. Scholars suggest that these communities became more socially “complex” during this transitional period, concomitant with a shift in economic practice: from a mixed economy to one of pastoralism. But the questions of “how,”, “why,” and “by what mechanism” these political and economic shifts came to be, have not been clearly established. This is in part due to a focus solely on burial monuments and their excavation. To counter this trend in Mongolian archaeological research, my joint Mongolian-American project attempted to engage conceptually and methodologically with occupational landscapes—an idea that acknowledge the importance of burial contexts but does not solely rely upon them. This talk will be a cursory presentation of our 2015 archaeological research in Bayankhongor aimag. It will cover the intended research plans, questions, and methods, as well as a partial discussion of the findings and their potential to inform us about the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of Mongolia.
Co-Sponsored by the American Cultural and Information Center, Ulaanbaatar
| | | | About the Speaker: Bryce Lowry
After receiving a B.A. in Classical Civilizations at the University of Arizona, Bryce’s interest in history led him to pursue archaeology. He worked as a field technician and Principal Investigator in the SW and Central United States, as well as participating in many academic archaeological projects covering four continents and six countries. Despite this breadth, his geographical attention permanently shifted East as he enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Chicago. Although concerned generally with East Asia and the Eurasian steppe, his research focuses specifically on prehistoric Mongolia. As an anthropological archaeologist, Bryce’s research engages with a variety of topics and methods pertinent to the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages of Mongolia. His interests include: space and place, GIS, political economy, household production and consumption, materiality, lithic and ceramic analysis, and bioarchaeology. Funded by the National Science Foundation, Bryce is currently analyzing data recovered from his 2015 archaeological investigation that took place in Bayankhongor aimag.
| | For more information visit the ACMS website www.mongoliacenter.org
Thank you to the American Corner and the Natsagdorj Library for sponsoring this event.
THESE LECTURES ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
The American Center for Mongolian Studies is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting scholarship in Mongolian Studies.
ACMS, Ulaanbaatar Public Library - East entrance, Seoul street-7, Sukhbaatar District
Phone: (976) 7711-0486, e-mail: info@mongoliacenter.org
website: http://www.mongoliacenter.org
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