British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam

The archaeological map of Middle Zeravshan Valley

Maurizio Tosi, Barbara Cerasetti, Simone Mantellini and
Bernardo Rondelli

The joint enterprise of the Institute of Archaeology of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, the Italian-Uzbek Archaeological Project and the Mission Archéologique Franco-ouzbek was initiated in 2001 to create a coherent database in GIS frame for the territory of the alluvial valley and its hilly flanks between Pianjikent and Navoi, the historical territory of Samarkand. It includes the hierarchy of cities, towns and agricultural settlements, as well as the steppe-lands to north and south of the alluvium, which were traditionally exploited by communities of animal herders. So far the southern section of the valley between the Kara-darya shores and the Kara-tyube, westward extension of the Zeravshan mountains, has been surveyed allowing a number of interpretations concerning the relative extensions and interplay between pasture-lands and irrigated areas.

The water-work that has largely determined the settlement history of the area is the Dargom canal, built at the beginning of the first millennium BC. The link between settlement distribution and density of burial mounds along the piedmont of Kara-tyube is fundamental to model relations between farmers and stock-breeders from Hellenistic times to the end of the Sogdian kingdoms in the early century AD.