Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Spring 5-15-2018 Kinship and Religious Identities in Medieval Central Asia (8th-13th c. CE): Tracing Communities of Mortuary Practice and Biological Affinity Elissa Anne Bullion Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Part of the Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Bullion, Elissa Anne, "Kinship and Religious Identities in Medieval Central Asia (8th-13th c. CE): Tracing Communities of Mortuary Practice and Biological Affinity" (2018). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1516. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/1516 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Anthropology Dissertation Examination Committee: Michael D. Frachetti, Chair Kari Allen Sarah Baitzel Tristram R. Kidder Erik Trinkaus Hayrettin Yucesoy Kinship and Religious Identities in Medieval Central Asia (8th-13th c. CE): Tracing Communities of Mortuary Practice and Biological Affinity by Elissa Anne Bullion A dissertation presented to The Graduate School of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2018 St. Louis, Missouri © 2018, Elissa Anne Bullion Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................... vii Abstract of the Dissertation ............................................................................................................ x Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Themes and Goals ............................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Outline of the Dissertation ............................................................................................... 3 Chapter 2: History and Archaeology of Medieval Central Asia ..................................................... 7 2.1 Central Asia as an Analytical Unit ................................................................................... 7 2.2 Current Understandings of Political Succession in Medieval Central Asia ................... 10 2.2.1 5th-early 7th Centuries: The Turkic Qaghanates ........................................................... 11 2.2.2 7th-8th Centuries: The Arab Invasions ......................................................................... 12 2.2.3 9th-13th century: Independent Polities in Central Asia .................................................. 15 2.3 Problematizing Medieval Central Asian History ........................................................... 33 Chapter 3: New Approaches to Investigating Identity and Practice in Medieval Central Asia .... 35 3.1 Social Identity in Archaeology ....................................................................................... 35 3.1.1 Previous Work on Ethnicity in medieval Central Asia ................................................... 37 3.1.2 Previous work on Religious Identity in medieval Central Asia ....................................... 40 3.2 Practice and Identity in Mortuary Ritual ........................................................................ 45 3.2.1 Mortuary Theory in Archaeology................................................................................. 46 3.2.2 Communities-of-Practice............................................................................................. 47 3.2.3 Mortuary Communities of Practice .............................................................................. 49 3.2.4 Burial Practice in Medieval Central Asia ...................................................................... 54 3.3 Biological Affinity ......................................................................................................... 56 3.3.1 Kinship ...................................................................................................................... 56 3.3.2 Quantitative Approaches ............................................................................................. 60 3.3.3 Kinship in Central Asia ............................................................................................... 62 3.4 Testing Current Narratives ............................................................................................. 63 3.5 Synthesizing Mortuary and Biological Affinity Data .................................................... 64 Chapter 4: Study Area and Research Sites ................................................................................... 66 4.1 Ferghana ......................................................................................................................... 67 4.2 Ustrushana ...................................................................................................................... 71 ii 4.3 Soghd .............................................................................................................................. 72 4.4 Chach .............................................................................................................................. 76 4.5 Khorezm ......................................................................................................................... 78 4.6 Tokharistan ..................................................................................................................... 82 4.7 Tashbulak ....................................................................................................................... 83 4.7.1 Discovery and Initial Study at Tashbulak ..................................................................... 84 4.7.2 Intensive Excavation ................................................................................................... 89 4.7.3 Site Chronology ......................................................................................................... 90 4.7.4 Tashbulak Cemetery ................................................................................................... 91 Chapter 5: Bioarchaeological Methods ....................................................................................... 105 5.1 Osteological Analysis ................................................................................................... 105 5.1.1 Skeletal Inventory..................................................................................................... 105 5.1.2 Sex Estimation ......................................................................................................... 106 5.1.3 Age Estimation ......................................................................................................... 107 5.2 Mortuary Analysis ........................................................................................................ 108 5.2.1 Mortuary Components .............................................................................................. 110 5.2.2 Mortuary Data Collection .......................................................................................... 112 5.2.3 Evaluating Mortuary Practice .................................................................................... 114 5.3 Geometric Morphometric Methods .............................................................................. 116 5.3.1 Use in evaluating biological variation ........................................................................ 116 5.3.2 Data collection ......................................................................................................... 118 5.3.3 Data Management..................................................................................................... 123 5.3.4 Statistical Analysis ................................................................................................... 130 Chapter 6: Analysis and Results ................................................................................................. 134 6.1 Mortuary Analysis Results ................................................................................................ 134 6.1.1 Identification of Burial Components .......................................................................... 134 6.1.2 Mortuary Components by Region and Site ................................................................. 139 6.1.3 Trends in Mortuary Practice by Burial Component ..................................................... 151 6.1.4 Regional, Chronological, and Demographic Trends in Mortuary Components .............. 154 6.2 Geometric Morphometric Results ..................................................................................... 157 6.2.1 Regional Level Trends .............................................................................................