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.
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