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Bronze Age Settlement Patterns and the Development of Complex Societies in the Southern Ural Steppes (3500-1400 Bc)

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Bronze Age Settlement Patterns and the Development of Complex Societies in the Southern Ural Steppes (3500-1400 Bc) BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES IN THE SOUTHERN URAL STEPPES (3500-1400 BC) by Denis V. Sharapov, PhD B.S., University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 2006 M.A., Georgia State University, 2008 M.A., Georgia State University, 2011 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2017 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Denis V. Sharapov It was defended on April 14, 2017 and approved by Francis Allard, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Loukas Barton, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh Marc Bermann, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh Dissertation Advisor: Robert D. Drennan, Distinguished Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Denis V. Sharapov 2017 iii BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES IN THE SOUTHERN URAL STEPPES (3500-1400 BC) Denis V. Sharapov, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2017 The ethnohistorical record of the Eurasian steppes points to the long-term predominance of extensive herding economies, associated with low population densities and high levels of geographic mobility. Consequently, investigations of early forms of complex socio-political organization in this region have thus far been primarily focused on Bronze Age (ca. 3500 - 1000 BC) funerary and ceremonial monuments, which presumably served as aggregation points for dispersed populations. When it comes to settlement pattern evidence, researchers claim that traditional models of regional-scale demographic organization, developed in the context of settled societies, cannot be applied to the early complex communities of the steppes. In order to learn more about the underlying social forces that were behind the independent emergence of larger more complex social formations in different world regions, this research focuses on the Sintashta (2050 - 1700 BC) development of southern Russia, which commanded particular attention of archaeologists due to the identification of more than twenty nucleated fortified settlements. Chiefly communities associated with these settlements have been considered odd in comparison to other early complex societies due to their small demographic size, lack of supra-local organization, a fairly short chronological span, and an apparent lack of local antecedents. Regional-scale investigation of the demographic and spatial parameters of Bronze Age communities, conducted in the context of this dissertation, indicates that the fortified settlements were centers of larger districts and therefore represented regional organization that was typical of other chiefdoms. Moreover, supra-local settlement organization and demographic centralization prevailed in the study area for another 300 years after the presumed Sintashta ‘collapse’. Such continuity in material correlates of social complexity took place in the context of substantial demographic growth. These iv results counter some of the previously held notions about the unusualness of the Sintashta trajectory. The novelty of this research stems from the employment of a survey methodology that relied on systematic sub-surface testing, which has never been utilized in the region before. Perhaps more interestingly, by reaffirming the unusually small demographic scale of Sintashta societies, the results of this dissertation support the notion that small scale societies are capable of complex socio-political organization. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................. XVII 1.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 GLOBAL PATTERNS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ............................................................................ 1 1.2 STUDY MACRO-REGION: RUSSIAN STEPPE ........................................................................ 2 1.3 SINTASHTA AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE .............................. 3 1.3.1 Lack of supra-local organization ................................................................................... 5 1.3.2 Small demographic scale ............................................................................................... 6 1.3.3 Lack of antecedents ...................................................................................................... 7 1.3.4 Sintashta collapse.......................................................................................................... 8 1.4 RESEARCH PROBLEM ......................................................................................................... 8 1.5 RESEARCH AREA .............................................................................................................. 10 2.0 METHODS FOR REGIONAL DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS ....................................................................... 13 2.1 FIELD METHODS............................................................................................................... 13 2.1.1 Surface collections ...................................................................................................... 15 2.1.2 Shovel probes .............................................................................................................. 16 2.2 POPULATION PROXIES: AREA-DENSITY INDEX ................................................................ 19 2.2.1 Phase 1: the initial delineation of collection units ...................................................... 20 2.2.2 Phase 2: eliminating low density collection units ....................................................... 20 2.2.3 Phase 3: eliminating units that did not produce positive shovel probes .................... 22 2.2.4 Phase 4: attributing surface densities to time periods ............................................... 25 2.2.5 Phase 5: incorporating the quarry area into the analysis ........................................... 26 2.2.6 Final result: area-density indexes ............................................................................... 33 2.3 ABSOLUTE POPULATION ESTIMATES ............................................................................... 35 2.3.1 Approximating the areas of Bronze Age sherd scatters ............................................. 35 2.3.1.1 LBA period ....................................................................................................... 38 2.3.1.2 MBA period ...................................................................................................... 39 vi 2.3.2 Population densities at previously excavated sites .................................................... 43 2.3.3 Converting area-density indexes into absolute populations ...................................... 47 2.3.3.1 Cross-check ...................................................................................................... 51 2.4 CONCLUSION: METHODOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND PITFALLS ........................................ 52 3.0 CHRONOLOGY AND ARTIFACT TYPOLOGIES ...................................................................................... 58 3.1 ENEOLITHIC LITHICS ......................................................................................................... 58 3.2 MIDDLE AND LATE BRONZE AGE CERAMICS ................................................................... 62 4.0 SETTLEMENT, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND COMMUNITY PATTERNS .......................................................... 75 4.1 METHODS FOR DELINEATING COMMUNITIES ................................................................. 75 4.2 SEQUENCE OF CHANGE IN COMMUNITY STRUCTURE .................................................... 76 4.2.1 EBA .............................................................................................................................. 76 4.2.2 MBA ............................................................................................................................. 77 4.2.3 LBA .............................................................................................................................. 83 4.3 SEQUENCE OF SOCIAL CHANGE ....................................................................................... 89 4.3.1 How representative is the sampled area? .................................................................. 94 4.3.2 Broader regional significance ...................................................................................... 95 4.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 96 5.0 POPULATION MOBILITY ..................................................................................................................... 98 5.1 MOBILITY IN THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE .......................................................................... 99 5.1.1 MBA fortified settlements .......................................................................................... 99 5.1.2 MBA unfortified settlements .................................................................................... 106 5.1.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................
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