Turkmenistan

The Karakum Desert of southern Turkmenistan marks a vast boundary between the Central Asian steppes to the north and the Iranian Plateau to the south, with the Kopet Dagh Mountains running along the plateau’s northern rim. The Murghab region is composed of a large alluvial fan, which contains the delta of the Murghab River, one of the two largest rivers that run out of the Kopet Dagh Mountains and disappear into the black sands of the Karakum. The region receives relatively low precipitation rates and is characterized by intercontinental climates and seasonal extremes. The Murghab region features a patchwork of ecological settings, including biologically rich streams and oases, which contrast with the desert and arid-steppe ecologies. Much of the vegetation in the region today is dominated by saxaul (Haloxylon), camel thorn (Alhagi), and Tamarix, but land within reach of irrigation canals has largely been under cultivation since the Soviet agricultural campaigns. Even with the patches of rich oases scattered across the Murghab, it seems hard to believe that a large density of humans once occupied this region, living in large urban centers and sprawling in small-scale settlements or seasonal camps across the alluvial fan. The archaeological remains of these early occupants are so dense that archaeologist Philip Kohl referred to the area as “Little Central Asian Mesopotamia.” The alluvial fans of the Tedjen and Murghab rivers became densely populated during the second and third millennia BC, with large settlements and extensive irrigation canal networks, enabling farmers to practice more intensive, high-yield agriculture. Understanding the changes in agriculture over time in this region remains one of the great motivations of scholars in the Spengler Lab, who are working to fit this region into a global comparative archaeological approach to the study of humanity (Spengler et al. 2014 a,b; 2016; 2018; Spengler 2015; Billings et al. 2022).

The ecology of the Murghab region appeared very different before the first millennium B.C. and was well-suited for large-scale irrigated agriculture. Understanding what this early environment looked like, how and why it changed, and how humans adapted to this dynamic landscape have been topics of debate for decades. Weighing in on this ongoing academic discussion, the Joint Italian-Turkmen Project to the Murghab Alluvial Fan has been conducting archaeological surveys and excavations since the early 1990s under the directorship of Barbara Cerasetti, from the University of Bologna, since 2006. In 2010, the Joint Project collaborated with Lynne Rouse of the German Archaeological Institute, as well as additional international specialists. The Joint Project has been excavating domestic sites to reconstruct the nature of the regional economy during the second millennium B.C. They have conducted archaeological excavations at large urban centers and proto-cities, as well as small-scale settlements, which appear to be either seasonal encampments or homesteads. These small-scale sites are often argued to have been occupied by a distinct population of people who engaged more heavily in pastoralism.

One of the primary objectives of the Joint Project has been to understand how different groups of people in southern Central Asia interacted with one another and how these interactions influenced the broader political and economic landscape of the Bronze Age (Spengler et al. 2018). The excavations of Adji Kui 1 and Togolok 1 have enhanced this dataset from Bronze Age urban centers in the Murghab. People living at Adji Kui 1 had a mixed economy, utilizing meat and dairy from domesticated herd animals, as well as wild foraged fruits and nuts, fish, and a wide array of domesticated crops. These cultivated crops included hulled and naked barley, broomcorn millet, free-threshing wheat, peas, lentils, grass peas, Lallemantia, bitter vetch (Vicia ervila), and fava bean (Vicia faba) (Spengler et al. 2018).

In 2013, the team, under the directorship of Cerasetti and Rouse, excavated the site of Ojakly (ca. 1600 BC). The domesticated grains identified at the site include free-threshing wheat (likely hexaploid; Triticum aestivum/turgidum), naked six-row barley (Hordeum vulgare var. nudum), and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum; Spengler et al. 2014). At the nearby site of Chopantam (ca. 1400 BC) a carbonized cache deposit of mixed grains and legumes was recovered, containing over 16,000 free-threshing wheat grains and nearly 9,000 peas (Pisum sativum), with less frequent remains of other crops may have been intrusive, including: both naked and hulled six-row barley varieties; broomcorn millet; lentils (Lens culinaris); grass peas (Lathyrus sativus); and a possible flax seed (cf. Linum). Ongoing work at Togolok is finding an even more impressive array of crops and wild plants (Billings et al. 2023), and members of the Spengler Lab are specifically targeting the site for its ancient Prunus remains (Dal Martello et al. 2023).

The Joint Project continues to excavate in the Murghab region, specifically at the sedentary site of Togolok 1, where continual discoveries are being made. Members of the Spengler lab joined the excavations in 2023. The nature of interaction and exchange among people in the Murghab region was dynamic and complicated. It is also clear that these social interactions fit into a much larger phenomenon of exchange sweeping across Central Asia at this time, one that would ultimately lead to the development of the Silk Road.