Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management

Managing agricultural risk, or variance in annual production, is a priority for farmers and herders. This article reviews the ethnographic and historical literature on agricultural risk management and identifies diversification and intensification as two distinct approaches to managing risk. Quantitative analysis of plant and animal remains from archaeological sites produces robust datasets that can be used to test predictions of risk management models related to diversification and intensification strategies. I present a variety of established and novel paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological measures that have implications for risk management and argue that multiple lines of evidence are needed to identify risk-management practices from archaeological remains. The article concludes with a case study of the multiperiod urban center of Gordion in central Turkey, where quantitative analysis of plant and animal remains demonstrates diachronic changes in agricultural risk management over 3000 years of occupation.     

Kara-tepe,Karakalpakstan: Agropastoralism in a Central Eurasian Oasis in the 4th/5th century A.D. Transition

This paper reports on the results of archaeological field excavations at the site of Kara-tepe, in the semi-autonomous region of Karakalpakstan in northwestern Uzbekistan. Investigations at the site in 2008–2009 turned up an unusually rich assemblage of remains from a household context. Combined analysis of the household botanical and faunal remains has allowed us to reconstruct the agropastoral practices of local inhabitants in this oasis region during a critical period of social and environmental change in the Early Medieval transition (4th–5th centuries a.d.). The results of the study raise important new questions about agropastoralism in the oases of Central Eurasia, highlighting continuities of practice between oasis and steppe populations, and revealing dynamic changes in these systems over time.