October 8, 2004: Headlines: COS - Mongolia: Ethnology: Antrhopology: Pittsburg Live: Group members also had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic survey, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers also working in Mongolia. They surveyed local inhabitants, asking questions that pertained to the burial of their dead, the treatment of animals, how they choose the sites for their gers, and rituals associated with horses.

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Mongolia: Peace Corps Mongolia : The Peace Corps in Mongolia: October 8, 2004: Headlines: COS - Mongolia: Ethnology: Antrhopology: Pittsburg Live: Group members also had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic survey, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers also working in Mongolia. They surveyed local inhabitants, asking questions that pertained to the burial of their dead, the treatment of animals, how they choose the sites for their gers, and rituals associated with horses.

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-141-157-9-111.balt.east.verizon.net - 141.157.9.111) on Saturday, October 09, 2004 - 12:32 am: Edit Post

Group members also had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic survey, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers also working in Mongolia. They surveyed local inhabitants, asking questions that pertained to the burial of their dead, the treatment of animals, how they choose the sites for their gers, and rituals associated with horses.

Group members also had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic survey, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers also working in Mongolia. They surveyed local inhabitants, asking questions that pertained to the burial of their dead, the treatment of animals, how they choose the sites for their gers, and rituals associated with horses.

Group members also had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic survey, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers also working in Mongolia. They surveyed local inhabitants, asking questions that pertained to the burial of their dead, the treatment of animals, how they choose the sites for their gers, and rituals associated with horses.

Archeological pursuit takes Indiana scholar to Outer Mongolia

By Gina Delfavero
Blairsville Dispatch
Friday, October 8, 2004

INDIANA--Ben Lind doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. And he loves being outdoors, so much, in fact, that his chosen path of study at IUP was environmental geoscience.

"I love being outside," Lind, 20, said, "anything that gives me an excuse to work outside."

Lind got outside plenty over the summer--all the way to Outer Mongolia, on the other side of the world, where he participated in a six-week summer course. This is the first year that the Khanuy Valley Project, an archeology dig focusing on the Bronze Age, was opened to IUP students, and Lind, a 2002 graduate of Indiana Area High School, immediately grabbed the opportunity.

Last fall, Lind took a biological anthropology course offered by Dr. Francis Allard.


Allard is co-director of an archeology project in Mongolia, in collaboration with the country's Institute of History. The project focuses on the Khanuy Valley, and on early nomadic pastoralism in the region, sandwiched between Russia and China in north-central Asia.

Allard did archaeological work in China, researching agricultural societies for 15 years before he met Dr. Erdenebaatar, director of archeology for the Institute of History and a professor at a university in Ulaan Baatar, the capital.

Allard was invited to visit Mongolia's archaeological sites, and once there, decided to start a collaborative project with Erdenebaatar, "And it's been great," he remarked.

So in 2000, he began to set up the project, which formally began the next field season, in 2001.

[Excerpt]

Group members also had the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic survey, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers also working in Mongolia. They surveyed local inhabitants, asking questions that pertained to the burial of their dead, the treatment of animals, how they choose the sites for their gers, and rituals associated with horses.

They discovered that each family continues to sacrifice one horse per year, usually in the fall.

Students were put on a rotation schedule between each project, so they got the opportunity to experience every aspect of the study.

Lind, though, did things a little differently from his fellow students. He was given the opportunity to spend three of the six weeks traveling in Mongolia with a professor from Pitt who accompanied the group. They concentrated on the upper Khanuy Valley and the northern Gobi region, collecting soil, bed rock, and drilling lake core settlement samples.

"With these samples, we're doing a stable isotope analysis," said Lind, "for paleo-environment reconstruction."

This trek, geared more toward the geological end of archeology, was supposed to be a one-week excursion, but Lind said it was extended to three weeks.

Students spoke little Chinese, but in Mongolia, they were able to learn much more of the language and customs by daily interaction with the natives.

"Everybody picked up an ability to communicate with the Mongolians," Lind said. Lind himself learned a little more than 30 words in Mongolian. "People were very patient."

The trip was a definite highlight of Lind's college career, and not just because he picked up six college credits--three for anthropology and three for geology (most other students received six anthropology credits).

It gave him the opportunity to travel to a very foreign place, learn new customs, sample new cuisine, and meet new people.

With another year of college to go, there is a possibility that Lind could participate in the course again, if it's offered, since only a small area of the 330-square kilometer project site has been covered in the last four years.

But that is just fine with Allard.

"I see myself working there for decades, hopefully," he said.

Gina Delfavero can be reached at gdelfavero@tribweb.com.





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Story Source: Pittsburg Live

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Mongolia; Ethnology; Antrhopology

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