The adoption of pastoralism in northeast Asia, monumental transformation in the Egiin Gol Valley, Mongolia

By what process did nomadic pastoralism spread across Asia and become the dominant mode of subsistence over a large portion of the continent? To examine this question I have used archaeological and ethnoarchaeological data that I recovered from Northern Mongolia and published archaeological and ethnographical reports. The results of my work situate the adoption and spread of nomadic pastoralism alongside the spread of farming agriculture in Eurasia by finding parallels between the precursor populations and landscape transformations that accompanied both adoptions.; The major method used to carry out this research was intensive full coverage archaeological survey supplemented with excavations. The Egiin Gol Survey Project covered approximately 250 km2 over a 40 km stretch of the Lower Egiin Gol valley in Northern Mongolia. Data on the recovered archaeological landscapes was examined to determine what changes took place in the arrangement of habitation, special use sites, burials and monuments during the transition to Bronze Age nomadic pastoralism. The primary data were chipped stone scatters and stone monument complexes which though initially interpreted as separate in time, were discovered to be contemporary and applicable to the discussion of the transition to nomadic pastoralism.; In conclusion, I propose a model for the adoption of nomadic pastoralism in Egiin Gol that uses the most dynamic archaeological data---stone monuments---as its basis: The precursor population of mobile, monument building foragers adopts nomadic pastoralism after they have been exposed to it for a period of centuries through close association and day-to-day exchanges. As Bronze Age nomadic pastoralism becomes established, its iconic monuments---the burials of individuals---move into prominent positions in the monumental record. But in the early phases of this transition, the tradition of sprawling, communal khirigsuur monuments is the one that is still most respected. This was essentially a process of adoptive change during which the major social transformation is the emergence of an elite who are commemorated with memorializing burials. I suggest that the process that lies at the root of this is emergence of the idea of property and the pursuit of status and economic security by the earliest nomadic pastoralists.