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and Members - Medoev
ADDRESS
Laboratory of Geoarchaeology [lgakz.org]
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Faculty of History, Archeology and Ethnology
4th Floor, room 4-8
av. al-Farabi, 71
050060 Kazakhstan
+ 7 777 2343875 / + 7 701 7609289
mail: ispkz@yahoo.com
In collaboration with:
Institute of Geological Sciences K.Satpaeva,
Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan
Kabanbai batyr, 69a # 279, Almaty 050010 [ign.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 Science 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. In 2007,
the Laboratory of
Geoarchaeology formed
also a department inside the structure of the Kazakh
Scientific Research Institute on Problems of the Cultural Heritage
of Nomads, Ministry of Culture and Information of Kazakhstan. From 2013, the Laboratory constitutes a
research center inside the Faculty of History, Archeology and
Ethnology of the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Ministry of
Education and
Science of Kazakhstan.
Geoarchaeology. 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 inside the Institute of
Geologogical sciences (2004) and today (2013) is a research center
in the Faculty of History, Archeology and Ethnology
of the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.
The laboratory numbers 7 members
Renato Sala (director, paleo-climatologist)
Zhaken K. Taimagambetov (co-director,
archaeologist, prehistorian)
Jean-Marc Deom (GIS specialist)
Saida
Nigmatova (palinologist)
Kostantin Patchikin
(pedologist)
Sergei
Perevosov (geologist)
Alexey Rogozhinsky (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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