Pastoral provisioning of Uyghur elites in an urban setting: Zooarchaeological and isotope evidence from medieval Karabalgasun, Mongolia

The emergence of the first urban centers in the Mongolian steppe coincided with the establishment of the Uyghur Khaganate during the mid-eighth century CE. The capital city Karabalgasun was a large urban space characterized by a sprawl of workshops, domestic households, and market areas frequented by indigenous and foreign residents, mobile pastoralists and travelling traders. Zooarchaeological analyses of faunas recovered from the fortified administrative citadel where high-status residences were located reveal Uyghur elites self-provisioned their households with animal products sourced from their own herds rather than extracting choice cuts from other producers. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses suggest that livestock accessed by elites were not only tethered to specific pastures, a strategy that would have signalled elite consolidation of wealth in livestock as well as providing a ready supply of meat and milk for the citadel inhabitants, but also included animals that grazed more extensively in line with mobile pastoralist practice and perhaps procured from more distant regions in the form of tribute or gifts by high-status visitors of the Uyghur elite. Altogether, the juxtoposition of livestock herding and animal product consumption with Manichaeism religious protocols calling for the absention from meat consumption suggests Uyghur elites attached great importance to maintaining their pastoralist heritage.