This project aims to provide new data on the populations (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex or BMAC/Oxus civilization, Andronovo Cultural Community, Vakhsh culture) who settled in the region located between the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya rivers in Central Asia during the Bronze Age, in the search for clues to multicultural processes, by using modern methods that are as yet pioneer work in this area and these populations. Field work in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will focus on surveys with the primary aim of finding new archaeological features, in particular settlements, whose number is sparse compared with burials, and to map the occupation patterns of the Bronze Age populations in all ecological niches. The surveys will be conducted in places suitable for detecting potential campsites of pastoralists and evidence of intermingling between different cultural groups. The Nuratau Mountains (Uzbekistan) has already proven to be a particularly favourable area for finding remains related to the Andronovo groups, and seems promising for collecting important new datasets on these populations. As a corresponding aspect, the Hissar valley (Tajikistan) represents a milestone between two major occupation areas of the Oxus populations in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well as between the "steppe" in the North and the "oasis" in the South. The surveys will target all of the ecological areas, especially in the hills and highlands that are still completely unexplored, and will also include geomorphological and landscape studies. Methodologically, extensive and intensive walking surveys in precise areas first defined by cartographic studies will be supplemented with small trial excavations when necessary to better understand the date and type of archaeological features. The entire documentation will be integrated in a database and a GIS platform. Research will also be oriented towards the study of pottery, applying innovative methods. In the region under study, several pottery collections from new joint expeditions or old excavations have been studied and already or soon published. Research can now be concerned with a more accurate characterization of the Bronze Age ceramic complexes through different kinds of analyses, especially innovative archaeometric methods in addition to the necessary elaboration of the typology and chronology. The objective is to reconsider the distribution of ceramic features in the area under study in order to refine the connections between sites and to better understand the influx and historical development of the "northern" mobile populations in southern Central Asia. A greater and more detailed identification of the diverse ceramic traditions of the different cultural groups should enable circulation networks to be traced and clues of techno-cultural transfers between the various populations who occupied the area at that time to be detected.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
