Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : reconsidering steppe social complexity within world prehistory / Bryan K. Hanks and Katheryn M. Linduff -- Framing complexity. Introduction / Ludmila Koryakova ; Differentiated landscapes and non-uniform complexity among Bronze Age societies of the Eurasian steppe / Michael D. Frachetti ; The Sintashta genesis : the roles of climate change, warfare, and long-distance trade / David W. Anthony ; Settlements and cemeteries of the Bronze Age of the Urals : the potential for reconstructing early social dynamics / Andrei V. Epimakhov ; The Maikop singularity : the unequal accumulation of wealth on the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe? / Philip L. Kohl -- Mining, metallurgy, and trade. Introduction / Katheryn M. Linduff ; Formation of the Eurasian steppe belt cultures : viewed through the lens of archaeometallurgy and radiocarbon dating / Evgenii N. Chernykh ; Late prehistoric mining, metallurgy, and social organization in north central Eurasia / Bryan K. Hanks ; The bronze-using cultures in the northern frontier of Ancient China and the metallurgies of Ancient Dian area in Yunnan Province / Rubin Han and Xiaocen Li ; Production and social complexity : Bronze Age metalworking in the Middle Volga / David L. Peterson ; Early metallurgy and socio-cultural complexity : archaeological discoveries in northwest China / Jianjun Mei -- Frontiers and border dynamics. Introduction / Thomas Barfield ; Violence on the frontiers? Sources of power and socio-poilicital change at the easternmost parts of the Eurasian steppe during the late second and early first millennia BCE / Gideon Shelach ; First-millennium BCE beifang artifacts as historical documents / Emma C. Bunker ; Blurring the boundaries : foragers and pastoralists in the Volga-Urals region / Laura M.S. Popova -- Social power, monumentality, and mobility. Introduction / Francis Allard ; Re-writing monumental landscapes as inner Asian political process / William Honeychurch, Joshua Wright, and Chunag Amartuvshin ; Socially integrative facilities and the emergence of societal complexity on the Mongolian steppe / Jean-Luc Houle ; Pre-Scythian ceremonialism, deer stone art, and cultural intesification in northern Mongolia / William W. Fitzhugh.