The Use of Plants at Anau North

University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Papers and Anthropology 2003 The seU of Plants at Anau North Naomi F. Miller University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation (OVERRIDE) Miller, N. F. (2003). The sU e of Plants at Anau North. In F. T. Hiebert & K. Kurbansakhatov (Eds.), A Central Asian Village at the Dawn of Civilization, Excavations at Anau, Turkmenistan. (pp. 127-138). University Museum Monograph 116. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/23 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The seU of Plants at Anau North Disciplines Archaeological Anthropology | Near Eastern Languages and Societies This book chapter is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/23 University Museum Monograph 116 A Central Asian Village at the Dawn of Civilization, Excavations at Anau, Turkmenistan Fredrik T. Hiebert with Kakamurad Kurbansakhatov Foreword by Robert H. Dyson, Jr. And contributions from Hubert Schmidt, Katherine M. Moore, Ogul'sona Lollekova, Langdon Warner, Naomi F. Miller, Alexandra Golyeva, N. M. Ermolova, Ann Forsten, James Adovasio, and Jeffery Illingworth UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM of Archaeology and Anthropology Philadelphia 126 A CENTRAL ASIAN VILLAGE AT THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION three skeletons indicates that one robust individual ever, that these burials represent a small sample taken (presumed ro be male) had an estimated starure of 170 from a limited area of the site, and the predominance cm. A second adult, interpreted as a female, had a of child burials in this sample underscores its narrow 10 stature estimated at 149 cm. ness. The fact that the burials within the settlement Given the period of srudy (1908), it is interesting were mostly of children and sometimes contained ro note that Mollison considered a racial diagnosis whorls and beads suggests that these interments may impossible '<since in the bones of the extremities func have been predominantly women's activities. In any The Use of Plants at Anau North tional influences come so strongly into action that it is case, these burials, made within architectural spaces difficult to distinguish between peculiarities due to (and in period IIA, placed underneath the floors of such functional action and those inherent in the race" rooms), indicate the dose relationship of whomever (Mollison 1908:464). performed the rite with the village space itself. Naomi F. Miller As the analysis of the 1904 Anau materials pro Jn contrast, fewer than 10% of the individuals ceeded, it is dear that Pumpelly found a racial explana interred at the Parkhai cemetery were children. This tion for the rise of civilization untestable and dropped suggests that children were buried elsewhere, possibly his plan to include a chapter on "Aryans" in the 1908 at the still unexcavated village site itself, as at Anau. volumes (Champlin 1994: 193-198). Instead, he focused Conversely, the low incidence of intramural adult buri on describing the rise of a unique early civilization. als at Anau North, combined with the evidence from Patkhai, points to the possibility that separate, formal cemeteries constructed outside of the settlement area Conclusions Relating to Burials might be typical during the Early Village Period in Central Asia. IfAnau had.such a cemetery, however, it A major goal of the 1997 excavation at Anau was to few kilometers north of the mountains, was probably The burials from Anau North documents the develop is likely to be deeply buried under the alluvium. .fl.retrieve a chronological sequence of plant remains at or just outside the boundary for dry farming. ment of the informal interment within setdements A pattern of intramural burials made just beneath from archaeological strata rhat could be correlated with According to one of our Russian colleagues, until at least for some categories of persons-in the Early floor levels is also found at both Ilgynli (Berezkin the earlier excavation of Kurbansakhatov on the north the construction of the Kara Kum Canal in the 1940s Village Period of Central Asia. At Anau South intra 1992) and Kara depe (Alekshin 1976) during mound of Anau. The remains provide evidence for the and subsequent increase in sedentary population, for mural burials continue through the Bronze Age and Namazga II and III. state of rhe vegetation, fuel gathering, and agriculrural est covered the Kopet Dag, even near Ashgabat. Today only end at the beginning of the Iron Age, where no Such a burial pattern evokes a scenario where indi practices. there are very few wild-growing trees in this region, burials have been encountered at all (Hiebert 1995, viduals would rerurn to an abandoned area of the set except in the steep and inaccessible crevices of the Warner 1908). tlement or out-of-use room to bury kin or complete Botanical and Archaeobotanical mountains or along streams. With regard to the central The burials under floors and in fill at Anau North funerary rituals for kin already buried there. Our sam Kopet Dag, Galina L. Kamakhina says that juniper was indicate a private rirual with few burial goods, few for ple from Anau North shows that this tradition extends Background the major constituent of the lower mountain wood mally constructed graves, and little evidence of social back to the beginning of the 5th millennium BC, dur land in this area: starus of the individuals. We must keep in mind, how- ing Anau IB !. Irrigated grain fields (wheat and barley) and orchards (apricot, plum, apple, almond, quince) surrounded the [paleobotanists] have demonstrated that the cut site in 1997 (Figure 10.1). By 2000, the Anau collec ting of junipers in the low northern foothills of tive farm had stopped caring for the trees; without irri Kopet Dag started as long ago as the 6th to 5th gation, most died. Recent and present-day agriculture millennia BC. During the last 40 to 50 years, areas provide no model for vegetation and land use in antiq occupied by juniper woodlands have decreased by uity. There are, however, some less disturbed areas 30 to 40%; the total debit of water in mountain within 20 km of the site. The following remarks are rivers has fallen by 50%; and many mountain based on sources published in English and on some springs have dried up. As a result, the altitudinal limited botanizing in the spring of 1994 and 1997: Dr. boundary of junipers has been elevated by 500 to Antayev Eke Antayvich of the Institute of Botany in 700 m from its ecological optimum, which has Ashgabat identified many of the voucher specimens; transformed many other plant communities . ... one of our assistants provided Turkmen plant names. The place of exterminated juniper woodlands was The distribution of vegetation on non-agricultur first occupied by mountain xerophytes, then by al land tends to follow topographic bands, thanks to a grasslands of E!ytrigia trichophora, and finally by fairly steep rainfall gradient between the Kopet Dag to sagebrush [Artemisia sp.] and ephemeroid desert the sourh and the desert to the north. Precipitation at vegetation. (Kamakhina 1994: 145) the base of the Kopet Dag is as much as 350-450 mm but rapidly declines to the north on the piedmont At the base of the mountains above Ashgabat on plain; annual precipitation at Ashgabat is 230 mm the road to Powrize, the landscape includes much bare (Orlovsky 1994: fig. 4, Table 5). Anau, situated only a rock, grasses, and small shrubs, and other evidences of 128 A CENTRAL ASIAN VILLAGE AT THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION 1 THE USE OF PLANTS AT ANAU NORTH 129 I gested a richer botanical environment than today. The same summary fairly well describes the results of the current work (the 1997 samples are primarily Hordeum vulgare var. vulgare, six-row barley). Previously reported (Harrison and Miller 1995) and not yet analyzed material from the Bronze Age levels of the Anau South mound will enable us to trace even longer term change through rime. Sampling and Archaeological Contexts First, reachable parts of the north and west baulk of 10.4 Saksaul woodland at the edge of the desert. Kurbansakhatov's excavation in sectors ANI-ANM were cleaned and drawn. It was possible to excavate up to a meter into the baulk of the upper strata in order to collect intact samples. The samples from this area syriaca) was once a significant component of tugai veg were taken during the course of excavation from areas etation (Lisirsyna and Popov 1988, Popov 1994). of obvious archaeological interest, like rooms and The first range of the Kopet Dag rises quite floors, not just because there was visible charcoal. steeply in many places, but there is a narrow strip of Indeed, most of the samples can be tied to correspon 10.1. Vegetation of the Anau region , 1997 (compare with Figure l .5c_:__same view in 1904). rolling terrain that has enough moisture from rain or ding structures and areas recorded in runoff to support shrubby vegetarian. I was able to col Kurbansakhatov's earlier excavations. The Anau II lect in one such spot a few minutes by car east of Anau deposits (layer 3) are represented by a few ash lenses grazing (Figure 10.2). Scattered small trees, mostly In the foothills south of Anau, small shrubs (espe (Figure 10.4). At least two shrubby types grow broad and hearth deposits in AN!. Most of the samples were growing at the base of scarps where water can collect, cially Artemisia) provide the only woody vegetation in ly interspersed among grasses-Calligonum sp.

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