For much of the summer, a beat-up Russian bus sits amongst the foothills of eastern Kazakhstan, within the Dzhungar Mountains. This solitary bus, outfitted with state-of-the-art scientific and electronic equipment, wireless Internet, and a driver’s area that transforms into a makeshift sleeping cabin, is a recent supplement to the equipment that has fostered years of groundbreaking fieldwork and research on nomadic pastoralism and human history.