Rogers Archaeology Lab

NorthLands in a Changing World

Before stepping out the front door of the Museum on a recent evening, I pull on my serious down parka and snap the fur-trimmed hood snug under my chin. Bill Fitzhugh, Director of the Arctic Studies Center, looks at me like I’m from another planet and says, “15 degrees isn’t that cold! If you were in Ulaan Baator now you wouldn’t be able to breathe.” Not being able to breathe is an exaggeration, but I got the point, thinking, “That is exactly why I am not in Ulaan Baator in February.”

I say, “Give me a hot desert any day.”

I will take my chances with sunburn and dehydration in the Gobi over frostbite in the Arctic Circle. Sure, I know 15° F isn’t very cold. In Washington we do get temperatures like this from time-to-time, although probably less so in the future.  

I’m also sure that Bill Fitzhugh is better adapted to the cold than I am. In his research, he camps with the reindeer herders in Russia and Mongolia, excavates European contact sites in Frobisher Bay north of Hudson Strait, and dives in Hare Harbor on Quebec’s North Shore. Bill specializes in the study of cold places, Vikings, Inuit, and the Mongol Empire.

Bill measures a whale limb bone, during an underwater excavation in Hare Harbor, Quebec. Image Credit: Bill Fitzhugh.

We have been colleagues for decades and have traveled in Mongolia, attended some of the same conferences, and sat at the same tables in countless meetings here at the Museum. The irony of my aversion to extreme cold is that the northern ice is melting and the Arctic is becoming warmer more quickly than other parts of the globe. And as part of a 4-year NSF grant, I am a member of a research team that is developing computer simulations of the ways social and climate systems interact. Last year the project received supplemental funding to include the Arctic.  Bill’s experience and that of the other members of the Arctic Studies Center, especially Laura Fleming, Igor Krupnik, and Stephen Loring have become critical links for this research project. Our current efforts are focused on both the Boreal and Arctic regions through a simulation called NorthLands.   

For me the experiences of 15° F in Washington, indigenous ways of life in the Arctic, and the travels of European explorers are directly connected and now linked even further through a modern high-tech way of building simulated worlds to find connections and their implications. The current evidence for climate change motivates us to seek better and more realistic ways of coping. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a report focused on the state of knowledge about managing risks and adapting to climate change. One of the case studies was drawn from the Canadian far north. We need to know how the risks will affect the lives of people who call those regions home, not to mention the fact that what happens in the Arctic has implications for us all.

The NorthLands view, looking down on the North Pole. This is the NorthLands model's graphical user interface (or GUI- pronounced "Gooey." This amuses us.). Photo Credit: Mason Smithsonian Joint Project on Climate and Societal Modeling.

The NorthLands model has 4 major components: climate, biogeography, social systems (including government), and infrastructure (roads, buildings, airports, etc.).  The model is currently under construction at George Mason University’s Center for Social Complexity, using the MASON simulation toolkit.  We think we can make a unique contribution by developing a simulation that replicates the dynamics of very complex socionatural interactions, on a very large scale.  Once NorthLands is fully functional, we can adjust different components and study the effects to analyze alternative scenarios.  We then compare the results against what we know about the real world.  Does NorthLands give us new insights?  Here are some of the questions we hope the NorthLands model will help us get closer to answering:

• What are the principal criteria for successful adaptation? What resources will be required?
• What kinds of collective action will be needed for successful adaptation?  How important are governmental policies?
• Is our adaptive capacity sufficient for the given challenges? Will we need new technologies?
• Are extreme weather and abrupt changes likely to exceed our capacity to adapt in some regions?

The experience of climate change isn’t just gradual rising temperatures. It is not as if every day is just slightly warmer; the change isn’t linear. There is an upward trend, but jagged ups and downs is probably a better way to describe the process as we experience it through increased variation in weather.  Climate change is sometimes about more extreme and unusual weather, and even abrupt changes.  Climate is complicated and even chaotic, but that doesn’t mean we cannot interpret the trends and sort out the implications for the ways we live on this planet.

You can read more about the project and the people working on the project on our website and the George Mason NSF-CDI Wiki.

In a future blog I will take a closer look at the word “adaptation” and the many ways it is used to describe the potentials of our future. 

 By: Dr. J. Daniel Rogers

Machetes to Lasers! The Archaeology of the Future

    If you’ve never been out on an archaeological dig, you may have been misled by Indian Jones style accounts of pulling fantastic treasures out of tombs and gold littering the floor of an abandoned temple. As much as it pains me to admit it, real archaeology isn’t like that (usually!).

Mayan stonework uncovered in Guatemala recently strikes me as a noticable exception. Wow! Photo source: National Geographic, image by Francisco Estrada-Belli.

Especially when working in inhospitable environments, like the jungles of South America, archaeology is very hard work. “There aren’t a lot of people who want to undergo the kind of pain it takes to work out there”, says Dr. Chris Begley, an archaeologist working in Honduras. I can vouch for this through the experiences of some of our former interns here in our lab. By a matter of chance, both Madeline and Margaret had gone on archaeological digs in Belize. While Maddy came out of the experience loving Mayan archaeology and ready to dig some more; Maggie, who faced off with a Fer-de-Lance, which was hiding out in a specimen drawer in the processing lab in Belize, was permanently dissuaded from pursuing that kind of archaeology.

If you found this in your drawer, you might have been dissuaded too... Fer-de-Lance are a particularly venomous viper. Image source and more info: BBC.

    One of the hardest parts of doing archaeology work is figuring out where (and if) to dig, and surveying the site before any work is begun. In the jungle, that means slogging through terrain so dense and inhospitable, that a pyramid can practically bite you on the nose (if a snake doesn’t first!) because it is so hidden in vegetation (Preston, 2013). Due to these difficulties, it can take years, if not decades to properly map out the sites lying in wait. Until recently, large areas of Honduras were almost entirely unknown; the terrain was just that impassable. However, with the advent of LIDAR, or Light detection and ranging machines, explorers have been able to take a closer look at the heretofore unseen ground features, which were otherwise hidden under dense canopies and vines. Flying a small plane over the area in tightly controlled patterns using a variety of high-tech GPS and other devices, Steve Elkins and his team were able to reveal a large number of undiscovered archaeological sites.

Thick Honduran jungle potentially hiding the lost White City, or La Ciudad Blanca. However, this popular legend may in the end refer to multiple archaeological sites located in the dense jungles of the Mosquitia region. Photo source: The Atlantic.

    Using LIDAR will open up a whole new vista for archaeologists that might have previously spent decades on even locating sites, before being able to dig, discover, and interpret. When archaeologist Chris Fisher, first saw the data coming back from Elkins expedition he said, “I almost started crying when I saw the lidar images… I thought, Oh, my god, I’ve just got back ten or twelve years of my life. It would have taken me that long to survey those nine square kilometers.” (Preston, 2013) This technique and others like it, has amazing potential for the future of archaeological research, as well as the possibility that we may start uncovering “lost” cities that have been well hidden from obvious detection. It will also enable us to more accurately study multiple sites in a regional sense to see what kind of connections exist between smaller sites and city centers, and general landscape use.

Comparing hand-drawn archaeological survey map with LIDAR map. Photo copyright A&D Chase, Souce: BBC. For more, see the article(s) on work done by other archaeologists on Mayan city of Caracol, seen above.

     LIDAR is part of a revolution in how archaeologists study sites without excavating. In the 1970s Dr. Rogers used a proton magnetometer to look below the ground surface of the Spiro Mounds site to map artifacts, house ruins, and even mounds that were otherwise invisible. Proton magnetometers have gotten a lot better since the 1970s and new techniques, like ground penetrating radar have been added to the toolbox (Goodman et al. 1995). These techniques are good for getting up close and finding the details, but you can also step back and let LIDAR give you the big picture.  But sometimes you don’t even need that. Google Earth is its own revolution, by making satellite images easily available. In Mongolia, where the ground isn’t covered by jungle, sites can be found and mapped without leaving the office. 

Site Ushkin Uver 2b, a Bronze Age burial mound surrounding by rings of stone markers.

     This kind of armchair archaeology is an excellent way to find out some things, but once in a while you still need to get the boots muddy. So don't throw away your machete or magnifying glass just yet; you'll need it when you get there!  

Dan Rogers examines the ruins of a dragon sculpture at the ancient Uighur capital of Ordu Balik. (photo by Mathew Gallon)

How has technology transformed your field of work? Are you an archaeologist using similar technology? Please comment! 

By: Meghan Mulkerin with Dr. J. Daniel Rogers. 

References Cited

Goodman, Dean, Yasushi Nishimura, and J. Daniel Rogers. 1995. GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) Time Slices in Archaeological Prospection.  Archaeological Prospection 2:85-89.

Handwek, Brian 2010. Massive Maya City Revealed by Lasers. National Geographic. May 20. 

 

Hopkins, Curt. 2012.  Lidar archaeology shines a light on hidden sites. BBC Future. August 28.

 

Preston, Douglas. 2013.  The El Dorado Machine: A new scanner’s rain-forest discoveries. The New Yorker, May 6.

Working Together: Ethnography and Archaeology

        The nomads of Mongolia and surrounding areas are no strangers to travel, and are well acquainted with influence from overarching powers, but curiously, regardless of modern influences, contemporary pastoralism in Mongolia has maintained a high level of continuity with ancient practice (Bold 1996). Through the strong preservation of ancient customs, Mongolian pastoralists are an important resource for ethnographers and socio-cultural anthropologists, as well as archaeologists. As archaeologists strive to uncover more information about Mongolia’s past, ethnographic studies have become an increasingly important factor contributing to their research, since many modern Mongolians still continue to live a nomadic pastoralist lifestyle and maintain many of the traditions that their ancestors had. As archaeological research becomes increasingly region oriented, specific ethnographic information is needed in order to provide viable comparisons between archeological data and present day ethnic groups.

Mongolian gers, with herds in the background. 2011. Photo: J. Daniel Rogers

        Luckily, ethnographic research within Mongolia has increased in recent times and helps to suppliment the older sources (Kradin 2005; Honeychurch 2008; Fijn 2011). Several important ethnographic studies includes those by Simukov, Vainshtein, Fernández-Giménez, and Fijn spans from 1934 through 2011 and each ethnographer provides research pertaining to a different aspect of Mongolian pastoralism, each reflecting the predominant socio-cultural views of the time periods in which they were written. Simukov, Vainshtein, Fernández-Giménez, and Fijn all provide data related to Mongolian pastoralism that that can be analyzed in the archaeological record. Integrating the results of both ethnographic and archaeological research can foster greater interdisciplinary discussion of the purpose, presence and prevalence of pastoralist communities in Mongolia, past through present.

        Our story begins with …drum roll please… Andrei Dmitriyevich Simukov! This Russian geologist conducted ethnographic field work on pastoralists in Mongolia, which is wonderful;  he has lots of great descriptions and charts…except, it’s published mostly in Russian and well, your authors can’t read Russian, so we will have to rely on the portions of his text that were translated into English.

        Simukov’s articles in the journal “Contemporary Mongolia” published in 1935, provide detailed graphs relating to the nitty-gritty details of pastoralist practices according to region.  This information is beneficial to archaeologists excavating within those specific regions, because they can compare the information they are finding about the past to modern practices through Simukov’s data.  Simukov’s data specifically defines the amount of livestock per household as well as the number of times a household moved within a given year. Simukov also recognizes that environmental factors influence sustainability. A significant portion of his study is dedicated to the different "zones" of Mongolia from steppe to mountains. This is especially useful for researchers who may be unfamiliar with the Mongolian environment. His description gives insight into the challenges pastoralists must face in order to make responsible decisions, especially within particular regions. Although helpful, one must be wary of Simukov's neatly delineated categorizations.

Image: Finch, C. (ed). Mongolia’s wild heritage: Biological Diversity, Protected Areas, and Conservation in the Land of Chingis Khan. Boulder, CO: Avery Press, 1999. Accessed via: Susan Fox's blog post, Mongolia Monday: The 6 Ecosytems.

 

          Simukov was interested in grouping people, regions, and practices into "types." For Simukov, there existed different types of people, who lived in different regions, and who practiced different types of pastoralism. He formats his writing very much according to these types with a detailed description following each type heading.  Although Simukov’s method is immensely useful in demonstrating the scope of ethnic and cultural diversity, one should proceed with caution. Married women who live in Connecticut are not all the Stepford wives, with perfectly manicured nails and cookies baking in the oven, and Mongolian nomads are not all practicing cookie cutter methods of pastoralism. No one household follows the exact practices Simukov describes, and there is no guarantee that every household follows the same methods every year. On the whole, Simukov's research, particularly the raw data, not only provides detailed descriptions, but also leaves room for interpretation.

        Another notable ethnographic study was conducted by ecologist María Fernández Giménez. Her study primarily focuses on communities in Bayan-Ovoo and Jinst Sums, Bayankhongor Aimag; Mongolia. She extensively addresses the different environments of Mongolia in her research integrating the discussion of environment into the lives of the pastoralists.  As an ecologist, Fernández Giménez is interested in how people and the environment interact. This is a two-way street and she recognizes this by stating how people influence the environment and vice versa. Her approach is interdisciplinary, with fields ranging from anthropology to sociology.  This interdisciplinary approach coupled with the use of direct quotations (albeit translated to English) from her interviews lends a personal quality as well as validity to her research.

        Cultural diversity is implied through discussion of Simukov's types, but it is actually demonstrated through Fernández Gimenez’s interviews.  She is also concerned with the cultural transference of knowledge to younger generations, which is useful to archaeologists interested in tracking cultural transmission through time. 

         Sevyan Vainshtein is a Russian anthropologist who discusses the economy of the nomadic pastoralists of Tuva, a region on the borders of Mongolia in Russia. Vainshtein’s goal was to provide an accurate and detailed field record documenting the economy of Inner Asian nomads. This particular topic is invaluable to archaeologists studying the generational transference of wealth amongst pastoralist communities in Mongolia. Vainshtein’s documentation may also be valuable to the debate concerning inequality among Inner Asian pastoralists addressed in recent literature by David Sneath and criticized by others such as, Nikolay Kradin and Peter Golden, but that is a subject for an entire blog post unto itself. Migrating back to the topic of ethnographers…

         Sources written in English about Mongolian herders are limited, but ethnographers such as Natasha Fijn are contributing to this literature. In the recently released book, Living with Herds: Human Animal Coexistence in Mongolia (2011),  Fijn notes she was unfortunately “unaware of any other work written in English that has examined the importance of herd animals, specifically ungulates, to nomadic pastoralist Mongolia” (2011: 17).

Fijn, Natasha. 2011. Living With Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia. Cambridge University Press. Image: Cambridge University Press.

       Fijn conducted most of her ethnographic research in 2005 while living with Mongolian herders in the Bulgan province around the Khujerin River Valley and in Arkhangai province. She sought to observe the process of animal domestication within current hybrid communities focusing on social behaviors between humans and other animals (2011: 17). This dynamic approach to interpretation and theory is particularly interesting for archaeologists that have traditionally held the perspective of domestication as solely a one-way street and not necessarily an interaction or conversation of sorts between man and animal. Fijn's approach, like most anthropologists, is interdisciplinary, providing a more holistic understanding of life on the Mongolian steppe. 

Mongolian herders. 2011. Photo: J. Daniel Rogers

        The graph below (see below to download) demonstrates the ethnographic evidence related to herd and population dynamics in Inner Asia. The graph is organized by country and region, including ethnographic studies from the Southern Gobi to the northern grassland steppe.  The average household and herd sizes of various nomadic populations, as well as the frequency of their movement across the landscape are also noted.

Pastoralist Household and Herding Data by Region Based on Ethnographic Data. Data compiled for NSF-funded project, Agent-Based Dynamics of Social Complexity (BCS-0527471). Click here to Download Table.

         Ethnographic research continues to assist archaeologists in understanding past societies through many avenues of research, from fieldwork to lab analysis and even computer simulation models. Yes-- even computer simulation models. Agent-based computer simulation models such as HouseholdsWorld (Cioffi-Revilla et al. 2007; Cioffi-Revilla et al. 2010; Rogers et al. 2012) alas do not provide an escape from reality as a video game would, but in fact provide something much more useful: comparable data. Computer simulation models utilize data from ethnographers, archaeologists, climatologists, paleo-biologists and many other scientists in order to create a simulated Mongolian social world, where various variables can be controlled in order to run experiments to examine how social and environmental factors are related to change and adaptation. In other words, every bit of research is important and key to understanding the entire picture!

-By Sarah Flores Ettinger and Samantha Linford. Editor: Meghan Mulkerin. 

 

Works Cited:

Allard, Francis. 2006. Investigating the Bronze Age of Khanuy Valley, Central Mongolia. In New Research Directions in Eurasian Steppe Archaeology: The Emergence of Complex Societies in the Third to First Millennia BCE, edited by Bryan Hanks and Kathy Linduff. Department of Anthropology & Center for Russian and East European Studies, Pittsburgh.

 Bold, Bat-Ochir. 1996. Socio-economic Segmentation--Khot-Ail in Nomadic Livestock Keeping of Mongolia. Nomadic Peoples 39: 69–86.

 Bazargur, D. 1989.Geography of Pastoral Animal Husbandry [in Mongolian]. Mongolian Academy of Science, Institute of Geography, Ulaanbaatar.

Bazargur, D., S. Chinbat, and S. Shiirev-Ad’yaa. 1989. Bugd nairamdah mongol ard ulsyn malchdyn nuudel [The movement of pastoralists of the Mongolian People’s Republic]. Mongolia State Publishing House, Ulaanbaatar.

 Bruun, Ole. 2006. Precious Steppe: Mongolian nomadic pastoralists in pursuit of the market. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.

 Cioffi-Revilla, C., S. Luke, D. C Parker, et al. 2007. Agent-based Modeling Simulation of Social Adaptation and Long-Term Change in Inner Asia. In Advancing Social Simulation: The First World Congress in Social Simulation, edited by S. Takahashi, D. Sallach, and J. Rouchier, 189–200. Springer, Tokyo.

 Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio, and Mark Rouleau. 2010 MASON RebeLand: An Agent-Based Model   of Politics, Environment, and Insurgency. International Studies Review 12: 31–52.

 Erdenebaatar, Diimaajavyn. 2000. Expedition Report on Ethnographic Research conducted in the basin of the Egiin River in Khantai Baga, Khutag-Ondor Soum of Bulgan Aimag. Mongolian Academy of Sciences Institute of History.

 Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria. 1997. Landscape, Livestock, and Livelihoods: Social Ecological and Land-Use Change among the Nomadic Pastoralists of Mongolia. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI.

 Fijn, Natasha. 2011. Living With Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia. Cambridge University Press.

 Frohlich, B., T. Amgalantugs, J. Littleton, et al. 2008. Bronze Age Burial Mounds (Khirigsuurs) in the Hovsgol Aimag, Mongolia: A Reconstruction of Biological and Social Histories. Studia Archaeologica Instituti Archaeologici Academiae Scientarum Mongolicae VI(XXVI): 6.

 Honeychurch, William, and Joshua Wright. 2008. "Asia, Central and north, Steppes, Deserts, and Forests." In Encyclopedia of Archaeology, edited by Deborah M Piersall, 1:517–532. Academic Press, New York

 Humphrey, Caroline, and David Sneath. 1999. The End of Nomadism? Society, State, and the Environment in Inner Asia. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.

 Jagchid, Sechin, and Paul Hyer 1979 Mongolia’s Culture and Society. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.

 Johnson, Allen W, and Timothy Earle. 1987. The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.

 Krader, Lawrence. 1955. "Ecology of Central Asian Pastoralism." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 11: 301–326.

 Kradin, Nikolay N. 2005. "Social and Economic Structure of the Xiongnu of the Trans-Baikal Region." Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 1(21): 79–86.

 Rogers, J. Daniel, Teresa Nichols, Theresa Emmerich, Maciej Latek, and Claudio Cioffi-Revilla. 2012. Modeling scale and variability in human-environmental interactions in Inner Asia. Ecological Modelling 241: 5– 14.

 Simukov, A. D. 1934. "Mongol’skie kochevki [Mongolian migrations]. Sovremennaia Mongoliia" [Contemporary Mongolia] 7(4): 40–46.

 Simukov, A. D. 1935. “Materialy Po Kochevomu Byrtu Naselaniya MNR [Materials About the Movements of the Population of Mongolia].” Sovrennaya Mongoliya [Contemporary Mongolia] 13 (6): 89–104.

 Vainshtein, Sevyan. 1980 Nomads of South Siberia: The Pastoral Economies of Tuva. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

 Vreeland, Herbert H. 1957. Mongol Community and Kinship Structure. Human Relations Area Files, New Haven.

 Ykhanbai, Hijaba, Enkhbat Bulgan, Ulipkan Beket, Ronnie Vernooy, and John Graham. 2004. Reversing Grassland Degradation and Improving Herders’ Livelihoods in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia. Mountain Research and Development 24(2): 96–100.