Exploring Landscape Archaeology and UAV-Based Survey in the Kochkor Valley, Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT

From the earliest archaeological investigations along Central Asia’s Tien Shan range, researchers have noted the diversity of highland communities and their participation in complex subsistence, exchange, and political systems. However, landscape archaeological approaches that might address socio-economic integrations have been limited by discontinuous, sometimes skewed datasets. Here, we present the results of UAV-based survey at Kok-Sai, an upland alluvial slope in the Kochkor Valley of north-central Kyrgyzstan, in which we identified more than 900 archaeological features in a 380 ha study area. Burials comprise roughly half of the identified features; stone structures, water catchments, irrigation channels, and terraces make up the other half. In an iterative interpretive process, we examine this busy landscape against high-resolution topographic and hydrological models, identifying repeated investment in the local physical and cultural infrastructure. Beyond the creation of a denser archaeological map for the area, the details of long-term, local landscape creation afforded by this study intersect with ongoing discussions of the organizational strategies and scales of highland agro-pastoralism.

KEYWORDS:

• mountain landscapes
• agro-pastoralism
• water management
• socio-hydrological systems
• drone imagery
• Tien Shan
• central Eurasia

Geolocation Information

The Kok-Sai alluvial slope is located roughly 200 km southeast of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It can be found in the southeastern Kochkor Valley at approximately 42°9.5’ N, 75°50’ E.

Acknowledgements

This project received funding from the European Social Fund (project No 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0002) under a grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Thanks are due to Taylor Hermes and Steven Keen for help during the 2019 field season. We are also grateful to G. Lindström and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this text. Author L. Rouse is especially grateful to Jean C. Horner for inspiring thoughts on memory, meaning, and the sense of place.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Full project title: Margins or Nodes? Dietary Adaptation Strategies and the Role of Inner Asian Mountain Communities in Prehistoric Food Globalization. Directed by G. Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, project website: http://www1040.vu.lt/en/projects/.

2 The petroglyphs, tamga signs (symbols of group identity), and runic inscriptions found on the Kok-Sai slope will not be discussed in the results presented here but are treated extensively by Tabaldiev (2011, 2015).

3 Automated feature detection and machine-learning techniques were not used in our analysis, due to the lack of a robust, fully ground-truthed training dataset, which we were unable to produce, given pandemic conditions throughout 2020. The protocols for such automated methods, as presented for example in Orengo and Garcia-Molsosa (2019), can thus not be applied to the present dataset but may prove possible in a future line of research at Kok-Sai or the broader Kochkor Valley.

4 To date, no systematic surface collection has been undertaken in the area. Numerous seasons of exploratory walking on the Kok-Sai slope have revealed only a handful of ceramics—some identifiable to the 10th–13th centuries a.d., others being undateable handmade sherds. The general lack of surface material may be explained by natural, animal- or human-induced erosional processes, and/or by the non-occupational activities of the slope (see discussion infra). Future research will concentrate on subsurface investigations and further targeted fieldwalking, which may yet reveal ceramic remains.

5 For example, techniques such as nearest neighbor and visibility analyses, or least cost paths and surface modelling, would emphasize spatial relationships and distances with negligible real-life meaning at Kok-Sai—identifying easily traversable obstacles and minimal differences in walking effort or time.

6 Aspect = slope face direction; aspect is linked to vegetation growth potential because of the way direct solar exposure changes seasonally in the northern or southern hemisphere, intensified as one moves further away from the equator.

7 A 2 m/pixel UAV-derived DSM (re-sampled and depression-breached) was utilized for the hydrological modeling discussed here. In practice, the ultra-high-resolution 13 cm/pixel DSM is unsuitable for such generalized modeling due to the topographic anomalies presented by individual stones and bushes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lynne M. Rouse

Lynne M. Rouse (Ph.D. 2015, Washington University in St. Louis) is currently a Researcher in the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin and director of the Project for the Ancient Murghab (PAM). Her research focuses on landscape archaeology in Central Asia and the effects of cross-cultural interaction on patterns of land use and resource management, as well as transformations in material culture and social complexity.

Kubatbek Tabaldiev

Kubatbek Tabaldiev (Ph.D. 1994, Novosibirsk State University) is currently a Professor at Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University. He studies ancient populations of central Tian Shan, with a particular focus on the Bronze Age and Turkic periods.

Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute

Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute (Ph.D. 2010, University of Cambridge) is an associate professor at Vilnius University and the head of the Bioarchaeology research center. Her main area of expertise is in the reconstruction of human dietary behavior using stable isotope and archaeobotanical analysis methodologies. She is currently studying the spread of agriculture and pastoralism across Eurasia from the centers of domestication and human adaptation strategies in the high-altitude regions of Central Asia.