What was the pattern of mongol settlement in russia

It is by investigating the whole spectrum of funerary and settlement data at different analytical scales and in different regions that archaeologists can hope to identify the seeds of later developments and to sort out intra- and interregional dynamics.

Before concluding this article and discussing the future goals and challenges facing the archaeology of Bronze Age Mongolia, a word must be said about bronze technology. Some studies based on common alloy formulas and stylistic similarities suggest links between some Mongolian bronze artifacts and the Karasuk bronze tradition of southern Siberia Volkov More recent studies based on compositional variability, however, suggest the possibility of several independent metal production centers within the borders of Mongolia as well.

At the present day, three main subzones have been identified: the Mongolian Altai region, the southern Gobi desert-steppe region, and the Khangai forest-steppe region Erdenebaatar However, there are also a few forged objects that are made with arsenic-free alloys—suggesting a different and specific technological tradition that is possibly associated specifically with the production of small knives that are found throughout the eastern steppe region during this time period Park et al.

That is, despite the apparent absence of bronze objects or casting debris in the few regions that have been intensively surveyed to date, the various and finely crafted depictions of bronze items on the numerous deer stones found in these regions do suggest that these people were well aware of these bronze objects—to the extent that it is plausible that some of them were involved in the use or distribution of these items.

Accordingly, it leaves the Late Bronze Age people living in these regions very much as participants of some kind in a society with craft specialization linked to metallurgy.

Given that the study of Bronze Age metallurgy has to date been done as an afterthought of excavations focused almost exclusively on objects retrieved from burials, it is not surprising that so little is known about ore sources and production centers.

This information will only come from a problem-oriented research that focuses on this particular issue and on the full range of sites, as this information will surely not come from the monumental landscape. Archaeological research on Bronze Age Mongolia has come a long way over the last decade or so, though much more work is needed in different parts of the country. Mongolia is not a homogenous zone.

One of the problems in trying to define generalized Bronze Age traditions, or a set of criteria applicable to all areas of Mongolia, is that each regional area also has its own character, probably due to its own internal stimuli, creating considerable diversity as well. In fact, the greatest contribution of the limited settlement archaeology that has been done to date in different regions is that it has demonstrated the great variation that exists in terms of settlement patterning and subsistence practices during the Bronze Age despite a shared ritual monumental tradition.

In fact, a key contribution of the few regional-scale surveys to date has been to introduce variability in space to a landscape that looked fairly uniform not so long ago.

That is, the similar monumental landscape masks more subtle, though important details about lifeways. On the other hand, archaeological research in the Bayan Olgii region of western Mongolia Houle and in the Darkhad Depression of northern Mongolia Clark has revealed greater mobility patterns, very different settlement practices, and variances in herd structure—characteristics that cannot be distinguished from the monumental landscape alone. In other words, there was not cultural uniformity between Bronze Age communities, and similarities between them vary geographically and throughout the period.

However, it is possible to define regional traditions during the Late Bronze Age. This is most clearly seen in the monumental landscape discussed previously, though even within these traditions a wide variety of stylistic types and interment practices have been accumulated and debated. To date, most of the settlement pattern survey work that has been done in Mongolia has been through dissertation research.

Given time and budget restraints, this has resulted in a patchwork of small surveys of different sizes that use diverse methods, thus hindering to some extent data comparability and ultimately the illumination of supraregional phenomena.

Happily, there is an increasing concerted effort underway to address this in order that survey data can be utilized in comparative studies. It is eventually these comparative studies that will enable us to better understand the social processes underlying the major changes that were taking place during the Bronze Age—social processes that eventually led to the rise of the Xiongnu polity, the first Steppe Empire in Inner Asia third century BCE to second century AD.

Allard, F. Erdenebaatar Khirigsuurs, ritual and mobility in the Bronze Age of Mongolia. Antiquity — Find this resource:. Erdenebaatar, S. Olsen, A. Caralla, and E. Maggiore Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.

Amartuvshin, C. Jargalan Askarov, A. Volkov, and N. Ser-Odjav Pastoral and nomadic tribes at the beginning of the first millennium B. In History of civilizations of Central Asia, vol. The dawn of civilization: Earliest times to B. Dani and V. Masson, pp. Bayarsaikhan, J. Shamanistic elements in Mongolian deer stone art. Fitzhugh, pp. Washington, D. Broderick, L. Unpublished field report. Houle Mongolian Journal of Anthropology, Archaeology and Ethnology 7: — Houle, and O. Seitsonen in press.

The circle of life: Stone circles and khirigsuurs in Bronze Age Mongolia. Seitsonen, J. Bayarsaikhan, and J. Houle a. Lambs to the slaughter: A zooarchaeological investigation of stone circles in Mongolia. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. Houle, O. Seitsonen, and J. Bayarsaikhan b. Clark, J. Unpublished Ph. University of Pittsburgh. Davydova, A. Aziatika, Saint Petersburg. Dorj, D. Neolithic burials and dwellings in Eastern Mongolia.

Neolit Vostocnoj Mongolii. Erdenebaatar, D. Burial materials related to the history of the Bronze Age in the territory of Mongolia. Linduff, pp. Chinese Studies. Fitzhugh, W. The Mongolian deer stone—khirigsuur complex: Dating and organization of a late Bronze Age menagerie.

In Current archaeological research in Mongolia , edited by J. Bemmann, H. Parzinger, E. Pohl, and D. Tseveendorj, pp.

Pre-scythian Bronze Age ceremonialism and art in northern Mongolia. Hanks and K. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bayarsaikhan eds. Mapping ritual landscapes in Bronze Age Mongolia and beyond: Unraveling the deer stone—khirigsuur enigma.

In Mapping Mongolia: Situating Mongolia in the world from geologic time to the present , edited by P. Sabloff, pp. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Foggin, P. Farkas, S. Shiirev-Adiya, and B. Chinbat Health status and risk factor of semi-nomadic pastoralists in Mongolia: A geographical approach.

Frohlich, B. Amgalantugs, J. Littleton, D. Hunt, J. Hinton, E. Batchatar, M. Dickson, T. Frohlich, and K. Bronze Age burial mounds Khirigsuurs in the Hovsgol Aimag, Mongolia: A reconstruction of biological and social histories. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Hinton, and K. Goler Bronze Age burial mounds in Khovsgol aimag, Mongolia.

Gryaznov, M. Southern Siberia. Geneva: Nagel Publishers. Hanks, B. Archaeology of the Eurasian steppes and Mongolia. Annual Review of Anthropology — Honeychurch, W. Inner Asian Warriors and Khans: A regional spatial analysis of nomadic political organization and interaction.

Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan. Inner Asia and the spatial politics of empire: Archaeology, mobility, and culture contact. New York: Springer. Wright, and C. Amartuvshin A nested approach to survey in the Egiin Gol valley, Mongolia.

Journal of Field Archaeology — Re-writing monumental landscapes as inner Asian political process. In Social complexity in prehistoric Eurasia: Monuments, metals and mobility , edited by B. Houle, J-L. Emergent complexity on the Mongolian steppe: Mobility, territoriality, and the development of early nomadic polities. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. Ishjamts, N. Nomads of Eastern Central Asia. The founding of Mozdok in was another stage in the building of the so-called Caucasian Line, completed in By the s, the empire had built a nearly uninterrupted perimeter linking the Crimea with the Altai.

However, the rank of all these officers and Astrakhan governors shows that the Caucasus remained of secondary importance. Throughout this period, from the s to the s, the action took place in Bashkiria and in the Kazakh steppe, where lieutenant generals, members of the ruling elite as I understand it, 49 were becoming by the s the true empire builders.

Erekle needed Russian support to consolidate his rule against his fractious nobility and to recreate a Greater Georgia. These khanates were ruled by khans who were also tribal leaders and whose first loyalty was to their tribes and not to Persia, which itself was so internally weakened that it did not even have its own shah. The politics of that tribal elite was the politics of plunder, unchecked by any higher power.

Eighteen of the 48 were in Kazan province divided into six provintsii, including that of the provincial capital Kazan, Viatka, Perm, Sviiazhsk, Simbirsk, and Penza and another 14 were in Irkutsk province. The Kazan-Orenburg region contained 24 uezdy and Siberia The other three were in Astrakhan province.

Everywhere, except in Orenburg, the Russians formed a majority : In Orenburg alone, they were still a minority of The largest group of nomads, not included in the 6.

Altogether, this population of 6. The result was the near abolition of the distinction between core and periphery and the creation, from an administrative point of view, of a unitary state. Not only was the number of provinces and uezdy considerably increased at each level, but the size of the administrative staff nearly trebled, in one of the most massive redistribution of the spoils in Russian administrative history.

The number of provinces rose from five to eleven and the number of uezdy from 48 to Kazan province was divided into five new provinces including Kazan Viatka, Perm, Simbirsk and Penza with 68 uezdy, where there had been only Astrakhan province disappeared to become Saratov province and the province of Caucasus, the latter divided into two oblasti -- a new name for the old provintsiia which, however, was abolished almost everywhere else -- Caucasus, with its capital in Ekaterinograd, and Astrakhan.

The number of uezdy rose from three to nineteen. Orenburg province was divided into thirteen uezdy instead of six, and two oblasti in Ufa and Orenburg. In Siberia, the changes were less significant. Each province remained headed by a governor, usually in the rank of major general, but the provincial chancery, under the name of provincial board, was now only one of four agencies, with a treasury, a civil and a criminal court, duplicated at the uezd level in the form of a land court, a uezd court civil and criminal , and a treasury.

But two or more provinces were now combined under a governor general, who was either a lieutenant general or a full general, directly responsible to the empress, the procurator general as the head of the civil administration, and the president of the College of War. In Orenburg province, 54 the capital was moved « inland » to Ufa, more centrally located. Since the situation was new there, it created « misunderstandings.

Of course, both were subordinated to the governor general of Simbirsk and Ufa, Lt. Otto Osip von Igelstrom , who originally resided in Simbirsk. Until the reform, the perception of the periphery had been a fragmented one, and it always looked south, along the axis of the Russian advance : from Astrakhan to the Terek, from Kazan to Orenburg, from Tobolsk to Omsk and the Altai, from Irkutsk to Selenginsk and Kiakhta.

The fortified lines in Orenburg province had been an extension of the Simbirsk Line, and Simbirsk was the crossing point for travellers to and from Bashkiria. In Siberia, Tobolsk province was linked with the new Perm province under a governor general. Two governors general were appointed in Tobolsk : Lt. Evgenii Kashkin and Alexei Volkov Perm on the Kama, near the confluence of the Chusovaia, which crossed the entire chain, was better situated than Ekaterinburg which had always faced east, toward Siberia.

Perm, like Simbirsk, was a transit point from which barges loaded with salt and iron descended the Kama toward Kazan and Nizhnii Novgorod ; it was also a point of entry into Siberia via Kungur. The major figure there was Lt.

Gustav von Strandmann , 58 a Baltic nobleman like Igelstrom, both proponents of a forward policy, one against the Kazakhs, the other against the Chinese in Mongolia, only waiting to be coordinated with that of their colleague in Irkutsk, Lt.

In other words, the administrative integration of the frontier under three military commands along a west-east axis was paving the way for a resumption of the Russian advance toward the south, into the Kazakh steppe and toward the Lake Zaisan depression, in the direction of Central Asia and eastern Turkestan the future Sinkiang.

Ivan Piel As a result, the Altai gold mining district -- placed in under the Cabinet and removed from the jurisdiction of the civilian administration but now combined under the treasury chamber -- and the Nerchinsk silver mines were placed under a single authority ; so was the entire mountainous region from the Irtysh to the Sea of Okhotsk, facing Mongolia and the Amur basin, the last segment of that immense frontier following a west-east axis, but also facing outward.

It was no coincidence that Jakobi was recalled on suspicion -- not entirely unjustified -- that he was planning to wage a war on China, and that Piel sent an expedition to Japan to negotiate the opening of the country to Russian trade and warships.

The creation of Saratov province in finally ended the old marginalization of the city as the northern outpost of distant Astrakhan. Five years later, a Caucasian province incorporated the eastern steppe of the northern Caucasus and the lower Volga depression below Tsaritsyn.

Its capital, Ekaterinograd -- a new « city » at the confluence of the Malka and the Terek, upriver from Mozdok -- lasted until , when Astrakhan became a provincial capital once again. The Caucasus thus represented an exception to the pattern of a west-east administrative-military frontier.

Especially under Gudovich, it formed the end of a corridor of expansion along a north-south axis running from Moscow straight to the Caucasus. The accession of Paul in November brought about the elimination of the post of governor general : the tsar did not like intermediate authorities at the regional level between himself and the provincial governors, although he also favored larger provinces in the borderlands that would maintain a certain continuity with the pre-annexation territories.

Governors general were replaced by military governors with jurisdiction over a single province. Gudovich became military governor of a larger Astrakhan province , and was succeeded by Lt. Karl von Knorring. It was inevitable that such a vast and complex region of interconnected parts would require the recreation of a regional authority.

In , Lt. Pavel Tsitsianov was appointed Chief Administrator glavnoupravliaiushchii in Georgia, military governor in Georgievsk and Astrakhan, and commanding general of regular and irregular troops on the line and in Georgia. Beginning in , these troops constituted the Georgian Corps, renamed Caucasian Corps in The war continued intermittently for nine years and ended in with the Treaty of Gulistan : Russia annexed the khanates of Ganzha renamed Elizavetpol , which became a uezd capital of the province of Georgia , Karabakh, Shirvan, Derbent, Kuba, Baku, and part of Talysh, and gained the exclusive right to navigate warships on the Caspian.

Alexei Ermolov, whose controversial tenure nevertheless strengthened Russian rule in the Caucasus. The administration of Siberia, however, continued to preoccupy the imperial government, which hesitated between three options. One was to appoint a military governor, who would also command the troops on the line, and remove the provincial agencies to Omsk.

This was not retained because Omsk, despite its growing strategic importance, was still a frontier outpost without the physical infrastructure necessary for a provincial and regional capital, while Tobolsk had long been the « capital of Siberia.

That was not practical, because Siberia was too large and too remote, and governors were not authoritative enough. The third was to appoint a governor general for the entire territory. A military governor was appointed in Irkutsk who remained until , while Tobolsk had a mere governor.

Kolyvan province was abolished and reintegrated into Tomsk uezd of Tobolsk province. But in , Tobolsk province was divided into two, Tobolsk and Tomsk, with the appointment of Lt. Ivan Selifontov as governor general for the three provinces, Tobolsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk -- the only region where the post was officially recognized. He was given extensive powers, including the command of all troops in the territory and even the right to change their deployment.

It amounted to the recreation of the Siberian Chancery, abolished in the management of a large territory was concentrated, not in a regional authority, but in one residing in the capital.

Old habits die hard. These separate agencies reported to the Irkutsk governor. Petr Kapsevich , who commanded the Siberian Corps in Tobolsk, Alexander Lavinskii , who had been governor in Vilna , in Irkutsk. However, there remained something awkward in requiring the governor general to reside in Tobolsk. In , Kapsevich moved to Omsk, thereby uniting civilian authority and military command for the first time since ; he left a civil governor in Tobolsk.

By the mids, the infrastructure of empire had taken final shape in the eastern theater. Its two pillars were the Caucasus and western Siberia, and its capstone was Orenburg province. Eastern Siberia would remain a forlorn region until the opening of China by the British in the s revolutionized the geopolitical situation in the Far East, and the annexation of the Amur valley and the Maritime Province in created a third pillar with a second capstone in Irkutsk.

In February , the Siberian Statute 71 was extended with some modification to the northern Caucasus, but the time was not opportune : Russia was at war with Persia once again In , the title of khan had been abolished in Sheki, Shirvan, and Karabakh, and the khanates became small provintsii administered by a commandant subordinated to a de facto military governor.

This type of administration was a fiasco and became a scandal : it gave arbitrary power to military personnel unchecked by the « governor general » in Tiflis, who looked upon Transcaucasia as a zone of occupation, what with the growing unrest in the mountains and chronic tensions with Persia.

He was assisted by a military governor in Tiflis. Siberia was becoming a sector of relative peace, while the Caucasus was becoming a war zone, with over 50, troops deployed there in 75 -- and many more to come -- while all regular troops had been withdrawn from Siberia in In , a Caucasian Committee was created in Petersburg, like the Siberian Committee which had recently been closed, a subcommittee of the Committee of Ministers. In , the post of chief administrator was replaced by that of viceroy namestnik , similar to the post of viceroy in Warsaw, an exceptional innovation in Russian administrative history.

Its first occupant was General Mikhail Vorontsov, who had been governor general of New Russia since In this basic outline, the administration of the Caucasus remained unchanged until the abolition of the post of viceroy in and the closing of the Caucasian Committee the following year.

In this enormous territory, now stretching from the Turkish and Persian border to Kamchatka on the Pacific, the population had grown, according to the census, to As in , the Russians formed a majority everywhere except in Bashkiria, where they remained a minority of 49 percent up from In the Kazan region and in Siberia, they made up Only in Transcaucasia were they almost totally absent less than 1 percent. The two large blocks were the Kazan region with 8.

The population of Siberia had more than doubled since but did not exceed 2. Everywhere in the triptych, the population remained highly diversified from an ethnic point of view.

Altogether the population of the eastern theater made up 26 percent up from Two central agencies and a network of local agents voevody created a basic administrative grid to implant a minimal Russian presence among native groups, who had paid the iasak fur tax to their nomad overlords and who now had to pay it to the Russians. Peter I, however, determined as he was to establish Russia as the hegemonic power in Eurasia, launched deep strikes into the river valleys of western Siberia and along the Caspian coast into northern Persia in an attempt to reach India and, in the process, transform Transcaucasia, Persia, and Central Asia, all former dependencies of the Mongol Empire, into Russian protectorates.

The subsequent strategic reassessment emphasized a defensive stance behind a perimeter of fortified outposts built along the course of rivers and across the steppe that created an arbitrary and temporary state boundary for the empire.

This defensive policy served a dual purpose. One was to corral the various ethnic groups which kept the frontier insecure because of their discords with the Russians and among themselves. The other was to create a secure environment for the advance of the Russian settler, develop an agricultural base to support a growing number of garrisons and Cossacks manning the forts, and encourage trade with the nomads alongside the perimeter.

Its center of gravity moved from Kazan to Orenburg, from Tobolsk to Omsk, and the College of War with its military delegates in the field became the major architects of imperial policy. The great proconsuls of the first half of the eighteenth century -- Gagarin, Volynskii, Kirilov, and Nepliuev -- were all civilians ; by the end of the century, Potemkin, Igelstrom, Springer, and Strandmann were all lieutenant generals.

Reluctance prevailed most of the time, and Siberia became known -- perhaps unjustly so -- as the land of runaways and convicts, of corruption and violence, the southeast as the land whose heroes remained Razin and Pugachev. No civilian government had the means to create there a « well-ordered police state ». Transcaucasia was a war zone, and there was no alternative to military rule.

But military rule, contemptuous of civilian authority and unchecked by the proximity of central agencies and some rudiments of civil society among the landed nobility, earned a bad reputation. West of it, the colonization of the former lands of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates had gone a long way to transform the provinces created in the s into core area provinces with much higher densities of population than east of the river.

Beyond it began « Asia » in the terminology of the time, where the first camels were visible across the river from Tsaritsyn on the edge of a featureless open steppe. In the south another world began beyond the Terek in the mountains of the Caucasus. I have only briefly alluded to it here.

Had the Russians been truly building an empire in the eastern theater since the conquest of Kazan in the middle of the sixteenth century, or had they been expanding the original Muscovite core and built an administrative, social, and military infrastructure to support the creation of an empire in the nineteenth century?

It is remarkable that until the end of the seventeenth century the periphery of Russian settlement barely reached the boundary of the forest zone, and that the Russian realm beyond the Volga was hardly any different from that of the forest zone of the original Muscovite core. The eighteenth century witnessed the advance of the settler and the military outposts into the steppe, very much as the Muscovite core had expanded southwards into the wooded steppe toward the open steppe of the southern Ukraine.

With a concentration on blacksmith operations in these workshops during the early stages of the settlement activities, Karakorum is a likely provider for military equipment. It served as station for the imperial guards and later housed the military colony of the province Lingbei Barkmann : 16 f. With mostly bowls of varying sizes and other tableware identified, only a few items such as miniature vessels hint at religious activities within these houses used for living and working Sklebitz : — They could prove that several foreign species must have been brought to Mongolia, with likely origins in Central Asia and China.

Especially the distribution of Chinese porcelain wares in the hinterland of Karakorum, proven by surveys in the Orkhon valley, hints to the pervasiveness of imports beyond city limits.

A city stands in a multifaceted network of relationships with its immediate and wider surroundings.

First, the city needs workers from its surroundings, second it needs raw materials that are processed and negotiated in the city, and third, it needs food for the daily needs of the inhabitants. At the same time, the surrounding countryside is the ideal location for buyers of goods produced and traded in the city. Numerous studies have shown that there is no clear separation between the city and its environs and that in several ancient cultures the city and its environs are not linguistically separated, but are described by one and the same term Marcus and Sabloff a : 22— Furthermore, there is no sharp limitation of the hinterland, its extent also depends on time-specific functions and interactions.

We are dependent on written sources for the information on the origin of the labor force. Numerous other workers, especially artisans, came from Central Asia, the Black Sea region, or Eastern Europe as prisoners of war to Karakorum, where they carried out commissioned work for the court or the elites Allsen , The people entrusted with the administration of the city and the affairs of government, as well as specialists in science and religion, also usually came from the conquered regions, attracted by the new possibilities de Rachewiltz et al.

So far, there is no evidence that pastoral nomads were settled in Karakorum or that the local population was integrated into the economic system of the city beyond the supply of animals.

The raw materials required for building and road construction come from the surrounding area of the city. The granite used for the column bases and millstones comes from quarries in the upper Orkhon valley. Slate, which was used to cover the kang systems and as road surface in the form of slabs, is also found in several places in the upper Orkhon valley and also directly south of Karakorum in the mountains. Due to the low demand, the quarries were certainly used on a seasonal and occasional basis, i.

Siberian larch, the locally dominant tree species, also served as a building material and is so far the only proven fuel Pohl et al. Charcoal piles, the relics of which would have to be present in large numbers in the surrounding area, have not yet been discovered. On the one hand, probably all the grey ware produced by pottery wheel was manufactured locally. A Mantou-type kiln for firing grey pottery located directly north of the Buddhist temple within the city area was excavated as early as without any further details being known Franken : On the other hand, the majority of the glazed goods and porcelain came to the city as finished products, mainly from production centers south of the Gobi Sklebitz This is all the more astonishing as smelting furnaces from the Xiongnu period have been excavated in the Orkhon valley Pohl et al.

Cast iron products may all originate from China; Mongolia has so far lacked any evidence of the use of the necessary technology.

Gold was already washed from the Mongolian rivers at the time of the first steppe empire of the Xiongnu Polosmak et al. This tradition is likely to have continued into the Mongol period, even though scientific analyses are still pending as final proof. Other raw materials necessary for specialized crafts may have come to Karakorum from distant regions, such as mercury or gemstones see Reichert ; also Allsen : At the same time, local raw materials such as birch bark, bones, leather, furs, and wool were used.

Just as for raw materials, a local frame of reference is emerging for the supply of food and livestock on the one hand, as well as an astonishingly wide one on the other. Animals were offered for sale at the city gates, as were cereals. For the animals, however, we do not yet know from which area they were delivered, and isotope analyses should provide a remedy in the coming years. The cereals, however, seem to have been in short supply and had to be imported on a large scale, despite repeated local cultivation attempts.

After no more supply routes reached Karakorum, the latter had to clear Karakorum and abandon it. It is unclear when the transports were resumed. Did this happen only after the disappearance of the anti-Yuan-Steppe coalition or already in the time of its decline?

This was due not only to the fact that alcohol was distilled from grain, which was mentioned several times in the Yuan shi and which was made a punishable offence, but also to the difficult growing conditions and the natural conditions. An inscription from mentions the cultivation of grain being threatened by severe drought Muraoka : In an emergency, the grain reserves kept in storehouses were also used to supply the population: An inscription from proves that grain from the military stores was sold to the starving and freezing population Ushine Karakorum is not alone in its dependency on food imports, and at this point we shall only remind you of grain supplies from North Africa to feed Rome or the transport of grain to the newly founded Roman city of Xanten on the Lower Rhine.

These two examples are intended to indicate that there is no typical nomadic deficit here, but that this is a problem of high population numbers or a difficulty with a poorly developed or economically self-sufficient settlement environment that is unable to produce the required surplus. Aware of this deficit, the Mongols founded Chinqai early on as an agricultural colony and production site and military farmers were settled in various locations Buell ; Shiraishi et al.

Most scholars locate Chinqai close to the Mongolian Altai, but convincing archaeological evidence is still missing. Several towns south of the Gobi had granaries Fig. Karakorum; 2. Yingchang; 3. Shangdu; 4. Jingzhou; 5. Etzina; 6. Fengzhou; 7. Jining; 8. Xinghe; 9. Pingdi; Yunnei; Dongsheng; Datong; Ningxia graphic by Tobias Pfaff, location of sites by Bryan K.

Miller, Michigan. In what kind of network is such an artificially built city like Karakorum integrated, which did not grow organically out of the region and is also located in a previously city-less economic region, where there was no need for a city? As with the supply with food, Karakorum again was placed within differently scaled communication networks.

Karakorum was connected to the major overland routes via the yam communication system and thus connected to and beyond the borders of the empire. This network of way-stations was not only used for the transmission of news but was also used by embassies and merchants. The costs of transport were at least up to a certain degree overrode by heavy political inducements. Khans are reported to have paid over-market prices and actively supported merchant bonds financially to attract trade to Karakorum see Favereau By , tax and booty had reached the treasure houses of Karakorum along these supply arteries and contributed significantly to the prosperity of the city and its attractiveness for merchants.

Karakorum then became an outpost, an island far away in the steppes and was fed and highly subsidized by the imperial center in northern China to keep the steppe region under control and because of its high symbolic value. It was a tribute to the birthplace of the dynasty Cleaves : One would expect that post, elites, merchants, and artisans moved to the new capital, Dadu, and that with that transformation the financial power and economic resources of Karakorum crumbled away.

However, no significant decline in quality goods and handicraft activities can yet be demonstrated by the small-scale excavations in the city center Reichert The statement that the emperor had Karakorum enlarged in Yuan shi : 20, also does not fit into the picture of a city in decline. The first Mongol rulers only stayed temporarily in Karakorum and then travelled on to the next residence. The various residences were mainly located by Boyle and the statements were refined from an archaeological point of view by Shiraishi Boyle a ; Shiraishi Through the evaluation of aerial photographs and detailed surveys, further contemporary sites with permanent architecture have been added in recent years that can be dated back to the Mongol Empire period on the basis of surface finds.

However, their function is largely unclear Fig. It is striking that so far all facilities have a different layout, and so it is not possible to deduce specific functions. At best, their significance can be inferred from the find material, such as glazed roof tiles covering the more important buildings.

As it appears so far, none of the other known permanently populated places — Khar Khul Khaany, Avraga, Bars Khot, Khirkhira, Kondui — is integrated into such a network of seasonally-used residences. Locations of residences and settlements with fixed buildings of the Mongol empire period in the Orkhon valley: 1. MOR; 2.

Doityn Balgas; 3. Bayan gol, 4. Zachyn Bulag? In order to give greater context to Karakorum, we ask how typical are the construction, planning, and use of the city as compared to other documented examples of urban places on the Mongolian Plateau.

An almost universal characteristic is the establishment of cities on an open verdant site separate from previous settlements. As far as can be assessed from other investigations, this applies to all large cities, residences, and permanent settlements of the Mongols and apparently also to cities of the Uyghur.

However, the Khitan came from northeast China as invaders to the Mongolian steppe and therefore pursued a different strategy for establishing permanent centers. This means that when steppe regimes founded a city, they purposefully broke away from the specific spots of cities belonging to previous empires, even if the city was founded within the same greater valley of previous establishments.

This was done in order to herald the establishment of a completely new empire. Another characteristic, which has already been implicitly stated but which is worth underlining, is that all these urban places or fixed settlements quickly declined after the overarching political system vanished.

They did not survive independently. Urbanism was not sustainably carried on by the remaining inhabitants or new arrivals. Karakorum fits into this picture of city foundations without urbanization, in the meaning that the population moves from the steppes to the urban area. These observations lead us to our initial questions of whether we can discern different trajectories in urbanization within pastoral and sedentary societies, or if there even is urbanization as such.

Regarding the latter question, we argue that there is no transformation of a society from a steppe to an urban one. This transient nature of urban sites is not even particular to pastoralist societies. Larger settlements of the Iron Age in Western Europe, attributed urban status by some scholars, show similar developments within sedentary, agrarian-based societies.

As to whether we can discern different trajectories in urbanization, we must change the question, since we can no longer compare urbanization but only urbanism. Concerning Karakorum, a discussion employing the list of attributes compiled by Smith would not allow for a strict differentiation in structural traits between the city in the steppe and other urban sites within sedentary societies.

This observation is not particularly surprising since the discussion also showed that skilled specialists from urbanized, sedentary areas were specifically brought to Karakorum to erect the city and the appeal for the rulers to establish a city was informed by existing locales. What, then, makes Karakorum special?

In addition to having structures that are particular only to this capital city, the built environments of Karakorum combine architectural elements from different cultural traditions, elevate them to a far greater size than equivalent structures elsewhere, and exhibit a far greater thickness of settlement layers and refuse material — all of which make Karakorum stand out among permanent settlements of the same time such that even without written documents one would assume the capital of the Mongols to be here.

The analysis of the environs shows impressively that the usual criteria and dimensions for a city—hinterland relationship have been set aside. The city of Karakorum lived beyond its means. A hinterland that can encompass the entire empire for individual needs and the integration of the city into extensive networks are characteristics of an imperial city.

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