Cultural Landscape

Period Overlay

Many sites within the study area involve monuments representing a long cultural history extending from the Bronze Age (or earlier) down through the Turkic period. In these cases the monuments are side by side, even closely so. We invariably sense that those who raised the later monuments understood and valued the presence of more ancient structures: that the earlier material in some way sanctified that particular site. This process of period overlay is well observed on the terraces of Khara Zharyk, Tsagaan Asgat, and on a number of terraces on the north and south shores of Khurgan Nuur. Such overlay reflects the operation of cultural memory, even if that memory was socially articulated on a mythic level.