Michael Frachetti
Biographic Data
| ID | 114426 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Frachetti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Frachetti |
| SIGNATURE | FRACHETTI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6906-4334 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 516 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Into thin air
High-altitude conditions on the Tibetan Plateau are often depicted as an inhospitable environment for conventional farming, yet evidence shows that communities in western Tibet grew ecologically hardy crops such as 6-row barley ( Hordeum vulgare ) by at least the 1 st millennium BCE, at locations above 4,000 meters above sea level (masl). However, little is known about the specific cultivation strategies and culinary traditions that these agropas…
Community practice and religion at an Early Islamic cemetery in highland Central Asia-Addendum
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Community practice and religion at an Early Islamic cemetery in highland Central Asia
Archaeological studies of Early Islamic communities in Central Asia have focused on lowland urban communities. Here, the authors report on recent geophysical survey and excavation of an Early Islamic cemetery at Tashbulak in south-eastern Uzbekistan. AMS dating places the establishment of the cemetery in the mid-eighth century AD, making it one of the earliest Islamic burial grounds documented in Central Asia. Burials at Tashbulak conform to Isla…
The Multi-Period Settlement Dali in Southeastern Kazakhstan
Archaeological excavations at the Dali site complex located in southeastern Kazakhstan provide a rich picture of Bronze Age life spanning from the early third to late second millennia b.c. Nearly ten years of research at the site have produced an abundant assemblage of architectural remains, ritual and burial contexts, human and animal ancient DNA, and evidence for related economic practices and other material forms (ceramics, metallurgy). A syst…
The wind that shakes the barley
This paper investigates the eastern movements of barley grains and their morphological variations in prehistory. By combining previously published and newly collected archaeobotanical grain measurements (n = 2,176), we explore the roles of culinary traditions underlying the morphological traits observed. We find that barley diminished in size as it moved from its origin in southwestern Asia to Central and East Asia between the third millennium BC…
The Maldives Heritage Survey
The Maldives Heritage Survey was established to document cultural heritage vulnerable to human and environmental threats in the Maldives. An open-access online database is being produced to inform academic studies, support heritage-management plans and create a permanent archive of digital heritage resources
Early agropastoral settlement and cultural change in central Tibet in the first millennium BC
Archaeological research demonstrates that an agropastoral economy was established in Tibet during the second millennium BC, aided by the cultivation of barley introduced from South-western Asia. The exact cultural contexts of the emergence and development of agropastoralism in Tibet, however, remain obscure. Recent excavations at the site of Bangga provide new evidence for settled agropastoralism in central Tibet, demonstrating a material diverge…
Reconceptualizing water history of Chinese Central Asia
The Impact of Ancient Genome Studies in Archaeology
The study of ancient genomes has burgeoned at an incredible rate in the last decade. The result is a shift in archaeological narratives, bringing with it a fierce debate on the place of genetics in anthropological research. Archaeogenomics has challenged and scrutinized fundamental themes of anthropological research, including human origins, movement of ancient and modern populations, the role of social organization in shaping material culture, a…
The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia
Ancient human movements through Asia Ancient DNA has allowed us to begin tracing the history of human movements across the globe. Narasimhan et al. identify a complex pattern of human migrations and admixture events in South and Central Asia by performing genetic analysis of more than 500 people who lived over the past 8000 years (see the Perspective by Schaefer and Shapiro). They establish key phases in the population prehistory of Eurasia, incl…
Nomadic Urbanism at Tashbulak
Farhad Maksudov, Elissa Bullion, Edward R. Henry, Taylor Hermes, Ann Merkle, Michael D. Frachetti, Nomadic Urbanism at Tashbulak, Urban Cultures of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Karakhanids, pp. 283-306
Nomadic Urbanism at Tashbulak. A new highland town of the Karakhanids
Introduction
Globalization in Prehistory
"Globalization in Prehistory challenges traditional historical and archaeological discourse about the drivers of social and cultural connectivity in the ancient world. It presents archaeological case studies of emerging globalization from around the word, from the Mesolithic period, through the Bronze and Iron Ages, to more recent historical times. The volume focuses on those societies and communities that history has bypassed - nomads, pastorali…
Bronze Age Participation in a “Global” Ecumene
Nomadic ecology shaped the highland geography of Asia’s Silk Roads
A Worldwide Network for Comparative Studies on Caravans
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Millet cultivation across Eurasia
The two East Asian millets, broomcorn ( Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet ( Setaria italica), spread across Eurasia and became important crops by the second millennium BC. The earliest indisputable archaeobotanical remains of broomcorn millet outside of East Asia identified thus far date to the end of the third millennium BC in eastern Kazakhstan. By the end of the second millennium BC, broomcorn millet cultivation had spread to the rest of C…
Nomadic Mobility, Migration, and Environmental Pressure in Eurasian Prehistory
Burial ritual, agriculture, and craft production among Bronze Age pastoralists at Tasbas (Kazakhstan)
Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas
The landscape of ancient mobile pastoralism in the highlands of southeastern Uzbekistan, 2000 b.c. – a.d. 1400
Here we present the results of archaeological survey and excavations carried out in southeastern Uzbekistan during the summer of 2011. The sites are among the first systematically recovered pastoralist settlements in the mountains of Uzbekistan. Our data include material culture and chronology that document mobile pastoralist communities in the mountains of southern Central Asia at least as early as the middle of the 2nd millennium b.c. Based on …
Ecotopes and Herd Foraging Practices In the Steppe/Mountain Ecotone of Central Asia During the Bronze and Iron Ages
Eurasian mobile pastoralists living in semiarid environments focus on specific locations on the landscape where pasture resources and water are available. Ecotones –or intermediary zones between the mountain and steppe environments– create mosaic landscapes composed of forage-rich patches and other discrete enclaves of useful biota for pastoralist communities. Ecotopes (ecological patches) provide vital resources for the herding systems used in C…
Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia
In this article I present a new archaeological synthesis concerning the earliest formation of mobile pastoralist economies across central Eurasia. I argue that Eurasian steppe pastoralism developed along distinct local trajectories in the western, central, and (south)eastern steppe, sparking the development of regional networks of interaction in the late fourth and third millennia BC. The “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” exemplifies the relationsh…
Bronze Age textile evidence in ceramic impressions
Textiles are powerful indicators of technology and contact, as the authors show for the peoples of the Bronze Age central Asian steppes. In this case the textiles are mainly missing, but have left their imprints on the surface of the inside of pots, captured when otherwise redundant cloths were used to paddle or jacket the clay before hardening and firing. A good supply of old cloths seems to have been part of a potters' equipment and some were u…
Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia
In this article I present a new archaeological synthesis concerning the earliest formation of mobile pastoralist economies across central Eurasia. I argue that Eurasian steppe pastoralism developed along distinct local trajectories in the western, central, and (south)eastern steppe, sparking the development of regional networks of interaction in the late fourth and third millennia BC. The “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” exemplifies the relationsh…
Earliest direct evidence for broomcorn millet and wheat in the central Eurasian steppe region
Before 3000 BC, societies of western Asia were cultivating wheat and societies of China were cultivating broomcorn millet; these are early nodes of the world's agriculture. The authors are searching for early cereals in the vast lands that separate the two, and report a breakthrough at Begash in south-east Kazakhstan. Here, high precision recovery and dating have revealed the presence of both wheat and millet in the later third millennium BC. Mor…
Migration Concepts in Central Eurasian Archaeology
Theories of migration hold a pervasive position in prehistoric archaeology of Central Eurasia. International research on Eurasia today reflects the juxtaposition of archaeological theory and practice from distinct epistemological traditions, and migration is at the crux of current debates. Migration was employed paradigmatically during the Soviet era to explain the geography and materiality of prehistoric ethnogenesis, whereas in the west it was …
Millet cultivation across Eurasia
The two East Asian millets, broomcorn ( Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet ( Setaria italica), spread across Eurasia and became important crops by the second millennium BC. The earliest indisputable archaeobotanical remains of broomcorn millet outside of East Asia identified thus far date to the end of the third millennium BC in eastern Kazakhstan. By the end of the second millennium BC, broomcorn millet cultivation had spread to the rest of C…
Burial ritual, agriculture, and craft production among Bronze Age pastoralists at Tasbas (Kazakhstan)
Eurasian pastoralists and their shifting regional interactions at the steppe margin
Recent excavations at the prehistoric and historic encampment at Mukri, in the foothills of the Dzhungar Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, challenge the view that it was a small, isolated pastoralist camp situated in an ecologically marginal territory. When viewed as a strategically situated node within a dynamic ecology of pastoralist activity, the site's archaeology reveals shifting patterns of land use and networks of interaction that contribut…
From sheep to (some) horses
Does the riding of horses necessarily go with the emergence of Eurasian pastoralism? Drawing on their fine sequence of animal bones from Begash, the authors think not. While pastoral herding of sheep and goats is evident from the Early Bronze Age, the horse appears only in small numbers before the end of the first millennium BC. Its adoption coincides with an increase in hunting and the advent of larger politically organised groups
Long-Term Occupation and Seasonal Settlement of Eastern Eurasian Pastoralists at Begash, Kazakhstan
Recent excavations of the prehistoric pastoralist settlement of Begash, located in the Semirech'ye region of eastern Kazakhstan, provide evidence of one of the earliest pastoralist settlements in the eastern Eurasian steppe region. The archaeological complex at Begash includes a multi-period cemetery and rock art in addition to the settlement—a site complex that is well distributed throughout the koksu River Valley. Excavations at Begash have rev…
Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas
The Impact of Ancient Genome Studies in Archaeology
The study of ancient genomes has burgeoned at an incredible rate in the last decade. The result is a shift in archaeological narratives, bringing with it a fierce debate on the place of genetics in anthropological research. Archaeogenomics has challenged and scrutinized fundamental themes of anthropological research, including human origins, movement of ancient and modern populations, the role of social organization in shaping material culture, a…
Bronze Age textile evidence in ceramic impressions
Textiles are powerful indicators of technology and contact, as the authors show for the peoples of the Bronze Age central Asian steppes. In this case the textiles are mainly missing, but have left their imprints on the surface of the inside of pots, captured when otherwise redundant cloths were used to paddle or jacket the clay before hardening and firing. A good supply of old cloths seems to have been part of a potters' equipment and some were u…
The wind that shakes the barley
This paper investigates the eastern movements of barley grains and their morphological variations in prehistory. By combining previously published and newly collected archaeobotanical grain measurements (n = 2,176), we explore the roles of culinary traditions underlying the morphological traits observed. We find that barley diminished in size as it moved from its origin in southwestern Asia to Central and East Asia between the third millennium BC…
Community practice and religion at an Early Islamic cemetery in highland Central Asia
Archaeological studies of Early Islamic communities in Central Asia have focused on lowland urban communities. Here, the authors report on recent geophysical survey and excavation of an Early Islamic cemetery at Tashbulak in south-eastern Uzbekistan. AMS dating places the establishment of the cemetery in the mid-eighth century AD, making it one of the earliest Islamic burial grounds documented in Central Asia. Burials at Tashbulak conform to Isla…
Early agropastoral settlement and cultural change in central Tibet in the first millennium BC
Archaeological research demonstrates that an agropastoral economy was established in Tibet during the second millennium BC, aided by the cultivation of barley introduced from South-western Asia. The exact cultural contexts of the emergence and development of agropastoralism in Tibet, however, remain obscure. Recent excavations at the site of Bangga provide new evidence for settled agropastoralism in central Tibet, demonstrating a material diverge…
The Maldives Heritage Survey
The Maldives Heritage Survey was established to document cultural heritage vulnerable to human and environmental threats in the Maldives. An open-access online database is being produced to inform academic studies, support heritage-management plans and create a permanent archive of digital heritage resources
Reconceptualizing water history of Chinese Central Asia
A Worldwide Network for Comparative Studies on Caravans
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
The Dzhungar Mountains Archaeology Project
Long-Term Occupation and Seasonal Settlement of Eastern Eurasian Pastoralists at Begash, Kazakhstan
Recent excavations of the prehistoric pastoralist settlement of Begash, located in the Semirech'ye region of eastern Kazakhstan, provide evidence of one of the earliest pastoralist settlements in the eastern Eurasian steppe region. The archaeological complex at Begash includes a multi-period cemetery and rock art in addition to the settlement—a site complex that is well distributed throughout the koksu River Valley. Excavations at Begash have rev…
Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia
Offering a fresh archaeological interpretation, this work reconceptualizes the Bronze Age prehistory of the vast Eurasian steppe during one of the most formative and innovative periods of human history. Michael D. Frachetti combines an analysis of newly documented archaeological sites in the Koksu River valley of eastern Kazakhstan with detailed paleoecological and ethnohistorical data to illustrate patterns in land use, settlement, burial, and r…
From sheep to (some) horses
Does the riding of horses necessarily go with the emergence of Eurasian pastoralism? Drawing on their fine sequence of animal bones from Begash, the authors think not. While pastoral herding of sheep and goats is evident from the Early Bronze Age, the horse appears only in small numbers before the end of the first millennium BC. Its adoption coincides with an increase in hunting and the advent of larger politically organised groups
Alpine imagery, Alpine space, Alpine time; and prehistoric human experience
Earliest direct evidence for broomcorn millet and wheat in the central Eurasian steppe region
Before 3000 BC, societies of western Asia were cultivating wheat and societies of China were cultivating broomcorn millet; these are early nodes of the world's agriculture. The authors are searching for early cereals in the vast lands that separate the two, and report a breakthrough at Begash in south-east Kazakhstan. Here, high precision recovery and dating have revealed the presence of both wheat and millet in the later third millennium BC. Mor…
Eurasian pastoralists and their shifting regional interactions at the steppe margin
Recent excavations at the prehistoric and historic encampment at Mukri, in the foothills of the Dzhungar Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, challenge the view that it was a small, isolated pastoralist camp situated in an ecologically marginal territory. When viewed as a strategically situated node within a dynamic ecology of pastoralist activity, the site's archaeology reveals shifting patterns of land use and networks of interaction that contribut…
Migration Concepts in Central Eurasian Archaeology
Theories of migration hold a pervasive position in prehistoric archaeology of Central Eurasia. International research on Eurasia today reflects the juxtaposition of archaeological theory and practice from distinct epistemological traditions, and migration is at the crux of current debates. Migration was employed paradigmatically during the Soviet era to explain the geography and materiality of prehistoric ethnogenesis, whereas in the west it was …
Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia
In this article I present a new archaeological synthesis concerning the earliest formation of mobile pastoralist economies across central Eurasia. I argue that Eurasian steppe pastoralism developed along distinct local trajectories in the western, central, and (south)eastern steppe, sparking the development of regional networks of interaction in the late fourth and third millennia BC. The “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” exemplifies the relationsh…
Bronze Age textile evidence in ceramic impressions
Textiles are powerful indicators of technology and contact, as the authors show for the peoples of the Bronze Age central Asian steppes. In this case the textiles are mainly missing, but have left their imprints on the surface of the inside of pots, captured when otherwise redundant cloths were used to paddle or jacket the clay before hardening and firing. A good supply of old cloths seems to have been part of a potters' equipment and some were u…
Ecotopes and Herd Foraging Practices In the Steppe/Mountain Ecotone of Central Asia During the Bronze and Iron Ages
Eurasian mobile pastoralists living in semiarid environments focus on specific locations on the landscape where pasture resources and water are available. Ecotones –or intermediary zones between the mountain and steppe environments– create mosaic landscapes composed of forage-rich patches and other discrete enclaves of useful biota for pastoralist communities. Ecotopes (ecological patches) provide vital resources for the herding systems used in C…
The landscape of ancient mobile pastoralism in the highlands of southeastern Uzbekistan, 2000 b.c. – a.d. 1400
Here we present the results of archaeological survey and excavations carried out in southeastern Uzbekistan during the summer of 2011. The sites are among the first systematically recovered pastoralist settlements in the mountains of Uzbekistan. Our data include material culture and chronology that document mobile pastoralist communities in the mountains of southern Central Asia at least as early as the middle of the 2nd millennium b.c. Based on …
Nomadic Mobility, Migration, and Environmental Pressure in Eurasian Prehistory
Burial ritual, agriculture, and craft production among Bronze Age pastoralists at Tasbas (Kazakhstan)
Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas
Millet cultivation across Eurasia
The two East Asian millets, broomcorn ( Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet ( Setaria italica), spread across Eurasia and became important crops by the second millennium BC. The earliest indisputable archaeobotanical remains of broomcorn millet outside of East Asia identified thus far date to the end of the third millennium BC in eastern Kazakhstan. By the end of the second millennium BC, broomcorn millet cultivation had spread to the rest of C…
Nomadic ecology shaped the highland geography of Asia’s Silk Roads
A Worldwide Network for Comparative Studies on Caravans
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Introduction
Globalization in Prehistory
"Globalization in Prehistory challenges traditional historical and archaeological discourse about the drivers of social and cultural connectivity in the ancient world. It presents archaeological case studies of emerging globalization from around the word, from the Mesolithic period, through the Bronze and Iron Ages, to more recent historical times. The volume focuses on those societies and communities that history has bypassed - nomads, pastorali…
Bronze Age Participation in a “Global” Ecumene
The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia
Ancient human movements through Asia Ancient DNA has allowed us to begin tracing the history of human movements across the globe. Narasimhan et al. identify a complex pattern of human migrations and admixture events in South and Central Asia by performing genetic analysis of more than 500 people who lived over the past 8000 years (see the Perspective by Schaefer and Shapiro). They establish key phases in the population prehistory of Eurasia, incl…
Nomadic Urbanism at Tashbulak
Farhad Maksudov, Elissa Bullion, Edward R. Henry, Taylor Hermes, Ann Merkle, Michael D. Frachetti, Nomadic Urbanism at Tashbulak, Urban Cultures of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Karakhanids, pp. 283-306
Nomadic Urbanism at Tashbulak. A new highland town of the Karakhanids
Reconceptualizing water history of Chinese Central Asia
Archaeology (29 works) · Geography (28 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (19 works) · History (19 works) · Ancient history (11 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (11 works) · Prehistory (11 works) · Bronze Age (10 works) · Eurasian Exchange Networks (10 works) · Pastoralism (10 works)