Kubatbek TABALDİYEV

Article | 2020 | Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports31

The integration of the Bronze Age populations in Kyrgyzstan into the Andronovo sphere is largely based on the resemblance of the ceramic material discovered at the Kyrgyz sites with the pottery from various Andronovo sites, which has been explained by human migrations. However, very few detailed pottery studies have been conducted, and no archaeometric analyses have been applied to date to the material from Kyrgyzstan. We present a first investigation on Bronze Age pottery from Uch Kurbu (Kyrgyzstan) through a combined archaeological (field-based stylistic and macroscopic examinations) and archaeometric (the application of X-ray flu . . .orescence, X-ray diffraction and thin-section Optical Microscopy) approaches. Compositional analyses on nine samples demonstrate an unexpected diversity in their provenance and a continuity in the main technological processes of pottery manufacture: raw material supply and processing to get coarse, low calcareous pastes, modelling using handmade methods and firing at low temperature in rather basic conditions. The study also highlights the combination of local peculiarities and extra-regional connections in style and technological processes compared to the pottery assemblages from other Andronovo sites. The whole integrated approach brings new information on the Bronze Age pottery production in Kyrgyzstan and contributes to the investigation of the social interactions as driving force for the diffusion of styles and techniques over central Eurasia in the Bronze Age More less

Kubatbek TABALDİYEV

Article | 2018 | Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports20

Archaeobotanical research in prehistoric Central Asia and beyond has repeatedly reported highly compact wheat and barley varieties found along piedmont sites of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC). The morphotypical variation of wheat caryopses across Eurasia generated the Liu et al. (2016) publication pointing out a decrease in grain size relative to eastward dispersal into China; the decrease in wheat caryopses was explained as human selection of smaller grain sizes for better culinary properties. In this study we discuss the possible effect of geographical margin, mountains in particular, on grain morphotypes. By understan . . .ding the patterns and reasoning of crop morphotypical variation in mountain zones we can better understand their subsequent dispersal patterns into lower altitudes. Here we present both wheat and barley grain measurements from four Bronze Age sites in Kyrgyzstan, located in the central Tian Shan mountains of average elevation 2000 masl. The data reveals that sites located in mountain valleys at higher elevations display a higher variability in crop dimensions. By analysing grain size variation within and between the sites in Kyrgyzstan and comparing our dataset with published metadata by Liu et al. (2016), we argue that variation in grain size was driven by environmental factors, while compact grain forms in particular could have formed in geographical margins such as mountains More less