Anthropological fieldwork in Naryn

October 8, 2015

Student of Anthropology Department Basira Mir Mahamad took part in the two-week anthropological fieldwork in the town of Naryn. She told us about this unique experience, and how the fieldwork helped her and other students to develop their practical knowledge of archaeology.

“The past has importance for everyone. I think that every person has at some point asked him or herself the question: when and where did mankind begin? Nowadays, there are two answers for these questions. A portion of people look for their answers in religion, the other portion tries to learn about the past through archeology. It’s not surprising that Agatha Christie said archaeologists are detectives of the past.

Our Department of Anthropology aligns well with this maxim, that is, we want our students to receive a practical education by participating in anthropological fieldwork and archeological excavation, becoming immediate witnesses of the past. We would like to express our gratitude to AUCA president Dr. Andrew Wachtel and the Department of Anthropology for giving us the opportunity to contribute to the history of the Kyrgyz Republic and Central Asia.

June 10th marked the freshmen’s inaugural (and unforgettable) two-week fieldwork trip in the town of Naryn. I would not have been surprised if Facebook and Twitter servers had shut down due to the sheer amount of photos and comments we produced--and are still producing--as a result of this trip. On top of the obvious archaeological discoveries we made, we were also introduced to the social life of the local people in Naryn.

When we were first driving up to Naryn, the same thing was on everyone’s mind: we are going to live somewhere in tents somewhere in the mountains without any water or electricity. Honestly, everything turned out to be quite comfortable and with both water and electricity. We were very fortunate to have a host family that was so welcoming for the entire two weeks that we were there. In fact, the family let us watch a live broadcast of the World Cup on TV.

Every day we worked on-site at Aijyrgal-2, located in western Naryn in the Ak-Kyia area on the left bank of the Naryn River. The site contained alluvial and eolian ruins, running 280 meters from east to west and 79 meters across--a lot of space for everyone.

There were three sections with groups of three to four students at each one. The small group-size gave us more responsibility and forced us to be more independent. For that, I thank our professor Aida Abdykanova. Not only did she teach us comprehensively about archeological work, but she also encouraged us to find an internal drive for perfection independent of anyone else.

In the evenings, we shared our experiences of work the various sections of the site. Fieldwork was always yielded the most impressive stories because each of us dreamed about finds. Surprisingly, on only the 50-60 cm deep cultural layer, we found coral and our first shouts and tears of joy appeared. We were the happiest people in the world. Of course, in our heart of hearts we wanted to find human remains, but at that point in the fieldwork, that tiny piece of coral was enough to evoke plenty of wonderful emotions as organic remains were also important for our research.

The old saying “your dreams will come true if you wish for them hard enough,” was true enough for us. On June 19, a skeleton of a prehistoric human was found in “area 2.” This was the first great and important finding of our fieldwork. It also has historic significance; rocks with ochre stains were found near the human remains.

We now have to figure out the time period of the human remains. Perhaps this human lived during the Mesolithic period. But we couldn’t do a concrete assessment, we had to wait for the results of the radiocarbon test. We were able to define the sex and age of the human. This human was male, Caucasian, and 30 years old. We also found a number of metals, possibly used as knives.

Don’t think we just studied and worked, though. We had a lot of time to learn about Naryn and its inhabitants. They were a very kind, open-hearted, and hospitable people. Of course, in the beginning everybody was looking at us with a bit of amazement because Ak-Kyia is small and all the people there knew each other very well. Everyone immediately knows about newcomers. Nonetheless, we were warmly welcomed. We could not get accustomed to the dearth of people; Naryn is not Bishkek, where you can see crowds of people walking down the street at midnight.

We were able to visit many historic places in the Naryn region. We went to Alamyshyk, a beautiful waterfall in Kara-Suu with large caves carved into the mountains; Koshoi-Korgon; and, of course, Tash-Rabat. On weekends, we all cooked pilaf and fried boorsoks. The trip was an adventure and a lot of fun--a life-long memory.

Fieldwork did not just develop our practical knowledge of archaeology, we were able to develop ourselves and our relationships with one another. Possibly the most important effect of the trip was uniting and strengthening our family of anthropologists.”

Basira Mir Mahamad, Anthropology Department

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