Session II: Taiga Archaeology

Dates: July 22 - August 18, 2025

Fees: $3,950 USD

APPLICATION

Why are we doing this?

Several new archaeological sites, primarily lithic and ceramic scatters, have been recorded by NOMAD Science in the high elevation Taiga, Tundra and intermediary zones that have the potential to help us understand how past people were utilizing these remote (even by Mongolian standards!) areas. In recent years, NOMAD Science has been working in the lower elevation areas of northern Mongolia’s Darkhad Depression, taking a landscape approach to model the seasonal movements and domestic activities of the region’s early inhabitants. Ethnographic observation suggests that interaction between low and high elevation areas in the region is common with goods and people moving in both directions. However, until recently, few archaeological sites had been discovered and examined in the high elevation “Taiga” due to intense logistical challenges and poor surface visibility. Finding and investigating new Taiga sites has the potential to provide a more complete picture of the land use strategies use by people inhabiting the lower elevation sites of the Darkhad Depression. The period of sites that may be investigated ranges widely from the paleolithic to recent historic times, though we will be focusing on Neolithic-Bronze Age sites.

National Parks were first organized in the area in the mid-2010’s. While they have a strong mission to protect the region’s natural resources, to date there has been little attention on the cultural heritage resources of the parks. In part, this is due to the fact that very little archaeological research has been done within the park boundaries. NOMAD Science and our partners initiated a collaboration with the National Park in order to develop a cultural heritage management plan for the region. Of course, one big part of managing any kind of resources is to inventory what you’ve got. This session will focus on locating and describing archaeological sites within the park. We will survey for new sites, as well as conduct some small scale excavations and geophysics surveys in order to better understand the archaeological resources of the park. Most of these areas have not ever been visited by archaeologists to date, and this is truly an exploratory program.

Field Activities and Skills

The NOMAD Science team will be travelling by horse back into some very remote regions of Mongolia in order to reach the sites that we are interested in. Participants will map and collect artifacts from newly discovered sites, will conduct surveys to locate new archaeological sites, will study and conduct excavations at recently discovered sites, will work closely with local national park staff, and will work to assess the impact of recent illegal gold mining on the archaeological resources of the area. Skills that will be learned, practiced and mastered include: navigation, pedestrian survey, site recording, mapping (including GIS), geophysical prospection, basic excavation, drone photography, community interaction, and basic Mongolian archaeological artifact typologies.

Intended Outcomes

The activities of this program will expand and improve existing settlement pattern models to include high elevation sites. Methodologies for locating and investigating these previously understudied and often unknown sites will be refined. Sources of commonly used resources (in particular stone tool raw materials) in high and low elevation sites will be discovered and recorded. Collaboration with the National Park to develop and imlement a comprehensive cultural heritage managment plan for park areas.

Description of camp life

The team will travel by car, and then horse for days to reach, and then return from the project site and should try to pack as lightly as possible while still being prepared so as to minimize the load on pack horses. Once on the site, a base camp will be created where most of the team will remain. There will likely be no cell service for the duration of the project. Small solar panels will be used to power essential project equipment as needed. We will sleep in individual tents. Participants are expected to provide their own tent, sleeping bag and mat, but all cooking and eating gear will be provided. Plumbing is non existent and so participants should expect to purify their own water from rivers and mountain streams. July and August typically have nice, though a bit wet weather, though particularly at high altitudes, chilly nights and occasional storms should be expected.