A rise and fall of a Chaghadaid community: demographic growth and crisis in ‘late-medieval’ Semirech'ye (Zhetysu), circa 1248–1345

• Published in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 513 - 544
• Main Author: Slavin, Philip
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.04.2023
• Subjects: 14th century; Age; Archaeology; Cemeteries; Community; Context; Corpus analysis; Crises; Demographics; Demography; Epidemics; Grave goods; Killing; Local population; Males; Medieval period; Mortality; Osteology; Pandemics; Plague; Political factors; Population; Population growth; Trends; Women; Young women; Italy; Central Asia; Europe; Kyrgyzstan; sex- and age-selectivity; East Syriac Christians; medieval; Chaghadaid; Central Asia; plague; sex ratio; population growth

This article analyses long-term population dynamics—growth, decline, sex- and age-composition—in Chaghadaid-era Central Asia in the context of the ‘Late-medieval Crisis’. It is based on a unique dataset of 630 epitaphs from two East Syriac (‘Nestorian') graveyards in the Semirech'ye region...