Annie Chan

An important propagator of the Central Asian historical discourse in the last century is archaeological findings related to the evolution of pastoral societies across the extensive landmass. This empirical recognition of the historical ‘other’ has furthered the understanding of the socioeconomic mechanisms rooted in the inseparable relationship among humans, animals and the environment, and challenged the theoretical underpinning for material diffusions. This study aims to identify functional and stylistic traits of technologies that can be ascribed to Bronze Age pastoralists in two pools of archaeological evidence from Xinjiang. It questions how technologies effected cultural and economic sustainability to better characterize pastoral behaviors and the steppe-sown technological osmosis.