Silent partners: archaeological insights on mobility, interaction and civilization in Central Asia’s past

Lynne M. Rouse

Central Asian Survey, 2020, vol. 39, issue 3, 398-419

Abstract: Civilizations are as complex as the human relationships that engendered them, and outlining these relational qualities within open notions of mobility and interaction frames a reconceptualization of Central Asia’s past. Recent Eurasian archaeological research deconstructs deterministic political-economic or hierarchical typologies of civilization and the overly simplified narrative that roots it in urban centres perpetually juxtaposed with nomadic groups. Archaeological evidence from the Oxus Civilization, Central Asia’s earliest complex polity (ca. 2500–1400 BCE), reveals the deep roots of sedentary–mobile interactions. I argue that Oxus–steppe relationships helped maintain the long-term structural cohesion of the Oxus Civilization as a multicultural entity, with implications for subsequent Central Asian polities. As we begin to balance the lopsided conversations about the social formations of Central Asia’s past and present, the silent partnership that characterized the Oxus Civilization is given a voice that forces us to reconsider who, exactly, belongs inside our notions of civilization.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02634937.2020.1769024 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:39:y:2020:i:3:p:398-419

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ccas20

DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2020.1769024

Access Statistics for this article

Central Asian Survey is currently edited by Raphael Jacquet

More articles in Central Asian Survey from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().