Social Trends in Temperate Eurasia During the Second and First Millennia BC

Koryakova, Ludmila

doi:10.1179/096576696800688079

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…He is not altogether comfortable with 'devolution' either, which, as he puts it, might perhaps be better described as the 'cyclical transformation of social complexity…rather than its continued growth' (p. 257). As Koryakova (1996) has argued, this may in fact be what occurred in the steppes in the second and first millennia bc. Moreover, the connotations of cyclical development are far different from devolution, and in my opinion, less problematic.…”

Section: David L Petersonmentioning

confidence: 86%

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia, by Philip L. Kohl, 2007. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; ISBN-13 978-0-521-84780-3 hardback £48 & US$89; xxiii+296 pp., 112 figs.

Peterson

2009

CAJ

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Section: David L Petersonmentioning

confidence: 86%

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia, by Philip L. Kohl, 2007. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; ISBN-13 978-0-521-84780-3 hardback £48 & US$89; xxiii+296 pp., 112 figs.

Peterson

2009

CAJ

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“…The path from the formation of nomadism to the creation of nomadic empires stretched for more than a thousand years. Lyudmila Koryakova (1996Koryakova ( , 2002 argues that it is possible to point out several waves of complex societies' formation in Eurasia in the Bronze and Early Iron Age. The first wave (up to 1600 BC) was the era of chariots, the time of theocratic chiefdoms and tribal confederations (Sintashta, Petrovka).…”

Section: Periodization and Levels Of Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time, new methodological approaches, such as the theory of chiefdom and early state, the civilizational approach, world-systems analysis, global history, began to be actively introduced into Russian humanities. Their use in nomadology has already yielded certain results (Koryakova 1996;Kradin, Bondarenko, and Barfield 2003;Bazarov, Kradin, andSkrynnikova 2004-2008;Koryakova and Epimakhov 2007;Vasyutin and Dashkovsky 2009;Vasyutin 2010Vasyutin , 2011aVasyutin , 2017Vdovichenkov 2016Vdovichenkov , 2018Petrov 2016, etc.). Foreign researchers joined the discussion of such definitions as nomadic empire (Kradin 1996(Kradin , 2000Vasyutin 2010;Pikov 2010;Rogers 2012) and super-complex chiefdom (Maekawa 2006;Scheidel 2010Scheidel , 2011Di Cosmo 2011;Shiraishi 2015;Kim 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Complexity, Inner Asia, and Pastoral Nomadism

Kradin¹

2019

seh

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For many years scholars have interpreted the large polities of pastoral nomads of Inner Asia as having different levels of complexity (pre-state, early state, feudal society, nomadic civilization, etc.). The present article discusses the debates of recent decades within the post-Marxist and postmodern approaches as well as the polemics about the relation between internal and external factors, about the hierarchy and heterarchy, periodization and complexity levels. Many important issues give rise to a new wave of debates. However, there is still no consensus on a number of fundamental issues. We call to a new phase in nomadic studies (nomadology) -the transition from the great theories to the middle-range theories. We also give comments on some articles of the present special section. FROM MARXISM TO EMPIRICISMIt can be said that by the end of the Soviet era four main viewpoints on the nature of nomadic social structure had formed in Russian nomadology (see in more detail: Kradin 1992Kradin , 2003Kradin , 2007Kradin , 2014Vasyutin and Dashkovsky 2009): (1) pre-class society among the nomads. At the same time, some researchers believed that nomads could achieve statehood with the establishment of foreign exploitative relations; (2) the early state of the nomads; (3) feudalism among the nomads: a) the orthodox version of the nomadic feudalism theory; b) the saun version of nomadic feudalism; c) power over the nomads as the basis of feudalism; the formation of feudalism in the course of poor nomads sedentarization; and d) opinions about the feudal essence of nomadism without indicating its nature; and (4) a special nomadic or exopolitary mode of production.Unfortunately, theoretical research in nomadology became unpopular in the post-Soviet period. In a broader context, one can state that a wave of empiricism has swept through historical studies, archaeology, and anthropology. A huge number of studies introducing empirical material into scientific circulation is published each year. Sometimes, there are interesting generalizations that can be attributed to the middle-range theories. However, the number of conceptual generalizing studies by the Russianspeaking researchers is exceedingly small. One of the primary reasons might be the disillusionment of scholars in Marxism and, subsequently, their unwillingness to create new idols for themselves. It is possible that this fact can be explained by the general crisis in academic studies, endless reformatting of the structure of research studies, poor funding, and fierce competition for additional resources.One way or another, in the first post-Marxist decade the discussion was rather sluggish and the leadership gradually shifted to foreign researchers. The very focus of discussion also changed. The most relevant issue was the level of complexity the nomadic empires corresponded to. Some authors support the idea of the pre-state nature of nomadic societies

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“…While, ostensibly, burial mounds are constructed to memorialize, if not monumentalize, the dead, the overall sizes and locations of the mounds are usually understood as directly or indirectly related to "prevailing ideologies" as their material expression both singly and as groups or cemeteries (Arnold 2002;Ballmer 2018, p. 100;Parker Pearson 2005). For instance, in many, if not most, studies on burial mounds, larger monuments are seen to communicate elevated status via communal effort in comparison with smaller mounds (Arnold 1995(Arnold , 2002Ballmer 2018;Barfield 2020;Brown 1981Brown , 1995Branigan 1998;Buikstra and Charles 1999;Hanks 2002;Koryakova 1996;Morris 1987Morris , 1991Morris , 1992Parker Pearson 2005;Parzinger 2017;Rolle 1989Rolle , 2011Saxe 1970;Steinhaus et al 2018;Tainter 1975;Voutsaki 1998). Yet, this tenuous connection to ideology is either too often taken for granted or overly reductionist in principle (and sometimes both).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Spacetimes of the Scythian Dead: Rethinking Burial Mounds, Visibility, and Social Action in the Eurasian Iron Age and Beyond

Johnson

2024

Arts

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The Eurasian Iron Age Scythians, in all their regional iterations, are known for their lavish burials found in various kinds of tumuli. These tumuli, of varying sizes, are located throughout the Eurasian steppe. Based, at least partially, on the amounts and types of grave goods found within these mounds, the Scythians are usually modeled as militant, patriarchal mobile pastoralists, with rigid social structures. Yet, such interpretations are also due to accounts of Scythian lifeways provided by “classical” societies from the Greeks to the Persians, who saw the Scythians largely as barbarians, much like their neighbors to the north of the Greeks, the “Celts”. Despite recent interrogations of the barbarian trope, and the opportunity to dissect the classic formula of large mounds = elevated status, I contend that many studies on Scythian mortuary practices remain monolithic and under-theorized, especially by Western scholars. Drawing upon different conceptual and methodological frameworks, I present alternative, multi-scalar understandings of Scythian mortuary landscapes. Utilizing a spacetime-oriented, dialogical approach supplemented with geographic information systems, I interrogate how and why various meanings and experiences may have intersected in these protean Scythian landscapes of the dead, rather than reducing them to monolithic symbolic proxies of ideological status.

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Social Trends in Temperate Eurasia During the Second and First Millennia BC

Cited by 14 publications

References 4 publications

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia, by Philip L. Kohl, 2007. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; ISBN-13 978-0-521-84780-3 hardback £48 & US$89; xxiii+296 pp., 112 figs.

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia, by Philip L. Kohl, 2007. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; ISBN-13 978-0-521-84780-3 hardback £48 & US$89; xxiii+296 pp., 112 figs.

Social Complexity, Inner Asia, and Pastoral Nomadism

The Spacetimes of the Scythian Dead: Rethinking Burial Mounds, Visibility, and Social Action in the Eurasian Iron Age and Beyond

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