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Address - History
and Aims - Structure
and Members - Medoev
ADDRESS
Laboratory of Geoarchaeology
Institute of Geological Sciences, Ministry of Education
and Sciences of Kazakhstan
69a Kabanbai batyr, # 279, Almaty 480100
tel: 7 3272 914386, fax: 7 3272 917931
ispkz@nursat.kz
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HISTORY AND AIMS
The Laboratory of Geoarchaeology
was officially instituted the 16 April 2004 in the context
of the Institute of Geological Sciences named after
K.Satpaeva of the Ministry
of Education and Sciences of Kazakhstan. The event happened
on the occasion of the celebration of the 70th anniversary
of the birth of the great scientist Alan Georgievich
Medoev, whose life and work were pioneering in KZ
and significant all over the world. The founding members are
a team of researchers (natural scientists and archaeologists)
who have cooperated together for more than 10 years and strive
to represent the ideal continuation of the Medoev school.
Geo-archaeology. We live in days when
human civilization is surrounded by a totally anthropogenic
landscape, developing under increasing human impact. The historical
roots of this interconnection between man and environment
cannot anymore be ignored, and deserve specialized studies
with appropriate methods and a specific discipline. Such a
discipline finds today more and more space on the borders
between quaternary geology and archaeology.
Geology. The Holocene period sees in
the human species a major factor of geo-morphological and
environmental changes and, during the last century, a forcing
agent of the global climate itself. These facts compel the
Geological sciences to include human history as an important
chapter of their field of research.
Archaeology, daughter of paleontology,
just one-and-half centuries old, has crossed periods of oblivion
of its roots and periods of return.
- Specialized in the study of the underground archives of
traces of past human activities, archaeology is always at
risk of becoming much too concerned for objects of social
significance, undervaluing the signs of the paleo-ecological
conditions of human life
- In the effort to reach buried cultural remains, it often
disregards tracers of the use of the monument and of the processes
of sedimentation that for millennia protected it from weathering
agents. Due to its congenital destructive character, the very
process of excavation, by hurrying for just objects and structures,
dismantles these archives and loses them forever.
- Too conscious of the richness of the underground archives,
it tends to under-estimate the significance of surface remains,
developing fetishism for buried structures and artifacts and
forgetting exposed monuments such as petroglyphs and, more
generally, cultural landscapes.
It is the awareness of these problems that makes
geo-archaeology an unavoidable new field of research, of which
Alan Medoev was a pioneer and a master. The application of
geo-archaeological procedures will help to avoid some major
deficiencies of archaeological investigation, constituting
an antidote to the risks detailed above. It will promote the
development in archaeology of methods characteristic of the
geological sciences, i.e. the attention for areas and processes
more than for objects and monuments: areas have to be discovered,
studied and protected; objects and structures have to be left
safely in underground archives for as long as possible.
We sincerely believe that the inauguration of
the Laboratory of Geo-archaeology represents a decisive cultural
event for the scientific intelligentsia of Kazakhstan and
is opening a future of higher cooperation between natural
and historical studies in the country together with the training
of operators at an international level.
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STRUCTURE AND MEMBERS
The Laboratory of Geoarchaeology is a VTC (Temporary
Creative Collective) organized in the frame of the Institute
of Geologo-Geographical Research, Ministry of Education and
Science of Kazakhstan.
The laboratory numbers 9 members, of whom 2
are elected as co-directors
Bolat Aubekerov (director, quaternary
geologist)
Renato Sala (co-director, paleo-climatologist)
Jeanmarc Deom (GIS specialist)
Kostantin Patchikin (pedologist)
Saida Nigmatova (palinologist)
Natasha Dimukhametova (botanist)
Alexey Rogozhinsky (archaeologist)
Jaken Taimagambetov (paleolithic archaeologist)
Rebecca Beardmore (archaeologist)
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MEDOEV
Alan Georgievich Medoev
(1934-1980)
Alan Medoev: Life, Work, Tradition
Alan Georgievich Medoev was born
in 1934 in Leningrad, son of G.T.Medoev, eminent geologist
and member of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan SSR. After
he graduated from the Kazakh State University in 1959, he
became a researcher in the Institute of History, Archaeology
and Ethnography where he specialized in Paleolithic sciences
and prehistoric art and promoted the creation of the Paleolithic
Department in cooperation with the Dept of Quaternary Geology
of the Institute of Geological Sciences. In 1965 he entered
the Institute of Geological Sciences where he devoted the
whole life to the study of stone artifacts (tools and petroglyphs)
as mirrors of the evolution of human cultures, in the frame
of climatic and environmental changes.
He supervised archaeological
expeditions and discovered and investigated Paleolithic monuments
of world value: Semyzbugu, Turanga, Khantau, Chingiz in Central
Kazakhstan; Shakhbagata and Kumakape in West Kazakhstan (which
represent some of the earliest human traces in the whole USSR),
Kudaikol and Karasor in East Kazakhstan. Everywhere he documented
at the same time the prehistoric, medieval and modern petroglyphs
of the region. The results of this work are reflected in 29
scientific publications and 9 geological reports. With references
to K. Marx and V. Vernadski, he underlined the dependence
of the human history on changes in its environmental context
and demonstrated that Paleolithic and prehistoric archaeology
can be better understood in the frame of geochronology. He
advocated a high respect for the Siberian school of Okladnikov
which supports the thesis of the community of the Late Paleolithic
cultures of Central Kazakhstan with those of North China and
Mongolia.
His wide interests concerned
also problems related to nomadic societies, Kazakh fine arts
and architecture, which he popularized with more than 20 articles
in national and Soviet magazines, influencing new historical
and archeological discoveries, and contributing to public
concern for ancient monuments. He was surrounded by people
of various backgrounds (architects, artists, critics, sportsmen,
writers, journalists, film makers) and of various social positions:
everyone remembers him by his friendly and inspiring words,
capable of awakening in everybody a sense of dignity and importance
as a human being.
The geo-archaeological approach
to the study of prehistory introduced by A. Medoev has been
continued after his death (1980) by colleagues of the Institute
of Geology (Aubekerov), paleontologists (Taimagambetov), archaeologists
and conservationists of the Institute of Study and Conservation
of Monuments (Rogozhinskiy), pedologists and botanists (Pachikin,
Nigmatova, Dilmukhametova), and coordinators of international
teams implemented under INTAS and UNESCO projects (Sala, Deom).
A multidisciplinary group of specialists gradually formed:
it is developing the geo-archaeological school of Kazakhstan
at levels of international significance and today their cooperation
is officially institutionalized by the Laboratory of Geo-Archaeology
dedicated to the name of the national pioneer in the field,
Alan Medoev.
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