Exploring Landscape Archaeology and UAV-Based Survey in the Kochkor Valley, Kyrgyzstan

From the earliest archaeological investigations along Central Asia’s Tien Shan range, researchers have noted the diversity of highland communities and their participation in complex subsistence, exchange, and political systems. However, landscape archaeological approaches that might address socio-economic integrations have been limited by discontinuous, sometimes skewed datasets. Here, we present the results of UAV-based survey at Kok-Sai, an upland alluvial slope in the Kochkor Valley of north-central Kyrgyzstan, in which we identified more than 900 archaeological features in a 380 ha study area. Burials comprise roughly half of the identified features; stone structures, water catchments, irrigation channels, and terraces make up the other half. In an iterative interpretive process, we examine this busy landscape against high-resolution topographic and hydrological models, identifying repeated investment in the local physical and cultural infrastructure. Beyond the creation of a denser archaeological map for the area, the details of long-term, local landscape creation afforded by this study intersect with ongoing discussions of the organizational strategies and scales of highland agro-pastoralism.

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