CHAPTER 1 HOUSE HUNTING A Systematic Approach to Identifying Ephemeral Households of Mobile Pastoralists William R. M. Gardner and Jargalan Burentogtokh Introduction Largely influenced by the work of Gordon Willey (1953) in the Viru Valley of Peru, studies of prehistoric settlement patterns have become an integral part of archaeological investigation. As the study of prehistoric settlement pat- terns began to mature, Trigger (2006) noted that settlement patterns could be analyzed on three levels: the individual structure, the local settlement, and the distribution of settlements within a region. Parsons (1972) further commented that to truly understand settlement systems there must be an integration of all three levels of analysis. Such statements seemingly provide a straightforward path for the archaeologist to follow as they set out on the journey of survey design. The way is not so clear, however, when the focus of the archaeological investigation is nomadic peoples who resided in ephem- eral mobile dwellings. Considering the likelihood that nomadic people’s mo- bile dwellings could produce an archaeological footprint, V.G. Childe went as far as to say that “pastoralists are not likely to leave many vestiges by which the archaeologist could recognize their presence” (1957: 381). Prob- lems surrounding the identification of nomadic people’s mobile dwellings are further complicated when natural conditions obscure surface manifestations of cultural features (as is the case when dense vegetation significantly limits ground visibility). Curious as to the nature of mobile people’s community development prior to the rise of the Xiongnu polity around the second century BCE (Watson 1993), we questioned how larger changes in social, political, and economic processes were realized at the household level. By asking such a question, our research team was tasked with the challenge of overcoming the afore-