Chapter 7. Ethnoarchaeology, Gender, and Pastoralism: Studies in Greece and Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

This chapter explores ethnoarchaeological studies of pastoralism in Greece (1978–1993) and later archaeological research on Iron Age agropastoralism in the Republic of Kazakhstan (1994–2018). My research in Greece focused on the facilities used by sheep and goat herders, such as animal folds, milking pens, and herders’ huts, as informal markers of territory and demographic indicators within systems of village and transhumant pastoralism. Later, I conducted archaeological field investigations from the mid‐1990s until 2018 in the Republic of Kazakhstan at Iron Age settlements (first millennium BCE) on agropastoral herding of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses and cultivation of wheat, barley, foxtail, and broomcorn millets. In Eurasian archaeology, the role of women in pastoral societies has been limited to burial materials, yet there is considerable ethnographic information on women's labor. The gendered technologies of textile production and feasting are examined through middle‐range model building. Ethnographic examples and ethnoarchaeological studies often inform the conceptual framework for archaeological research.