Tracing Change: Environmental, Genetic, and Cultural Developments in Bronze Age to Medieval Eurasia

Abstract

This lecture will tackle the long trajectories of change that shape the cultural ecumene of Central Asia, starting with key moments in the Bronze Age (and even a bit earlier) and culminating in the 11th c. Central themes will be the emergence of domesticated economies, bronze technology, political transformation, and urbanism. We will examine the underlying human-environmental relationships that shape the Bronze Age of the Inner Asian Mt Corridor. We will start before the Bronze Age, with the preceding eras, and grow toward the apogee of Bronze Age interaction and economic innovation.

About the Presenter

Professor Michael Frachetti

The main focus of Professor Frachetti’s research is on the dynamic strategies of pastoral nomadic societies living in the steppe region, mounts and deserts of Central and Eastern Eurasia during the Bronze Age. His work centres primarily on pastoralism in the Bronze Age (~3500-1000BC), which is intricately tied to questions of social and economic interaction between regional populations across Central Asian at that time. His theoretical interests centre on how social groups utilise economic and political strategies to communicate inter-regionally, and how variability in their economic and social strategies introduces opportunities for reshaping the boundaries of their social landscapes and human interactions. He is also interested in the relationship between pastoral strategies and the environment, and how the choices and ways of life of mobile groups contributes to the formation of wide-reaching networks as early as 2000BC (the Mid-Bronze Age).