ABSTRACT

In this article I explore the origin and nature of the social and economic processes that in later prehistory transformed the Eurasian continent from a large but enclosed marginal region into a highly dynamic and mobile interaction zone connecting eastern and western Asia. The basic components in this process were the adoption of a nucleated family structure suited for expansion, incorporation, and the transmission of mobile wealth, in combination with the formation of an agropastoral economy based on herding, wagons, and mobile property. This led to an ecological transformation that created open steppelike environments from northwestern Europe to east of the Urals. By the end of the second millennium B.c.e. these historical processes had transformed Eurasia into a vast interaction zone for mobile, warlike pastoral nomads, linking eastern and western Asia to a common historical pulse.