ABSTRACT
The history of the Mongol Empire has most commonly been told using the evidence of the often richly detailed written sources, even though more than a century of arch-aeological study has produced a mass of evidence about the material culture across the empire. Publications of the archaeological material often are difficult to access and, for non-experts, difficult to assess. The surface remains of settlements from the era of the Golden Horde had attracted the attention of Russian administrators and scholars early in the eighteenth century, at a time when even rather substantial portions of significant buildings were still in evidence. Horde material and systematized a great deal of the numismatic evidence, both of which are essential for establishing chronology. The structural features of residential architecture tell us little about who may have inhabited the buildings, even though some residential complexes include, along with masonry buildings, evidence of yurts.
