Archaeologists recently discovered two ancient cities in Uzbekistan’s mountains, and this is putting forward our vision of the historic Silk Road. The Silk Road was most generally seen to join together the trade routes in East and West, mainly connecting lowland urban centers. Researchers now, thanks to advanced remote sensing technology, unveiled two medieval cities, Tugunbulak and Tashbulak, that thrived at above 2,000 meters.
Whereas Tugunbulak is the larger town, it occupies 120 hectares and sits over more than 6,600 feet above sea level-an elevation which is almost impenetrable these days. Drones and LiDAR-technology, that maps the ground three-dimensionally through laser pulses, were a necessity for this discovery. Initial signs of Tashbulak surfaced in 2011 when fragments of pottery and burial grounds came to light that suggested medieval settlement.
The team, led by Uzbekistan’s National Center of Archaeology director Farhod Maksudov and Michael Frachetti of Washington University, faced stiff environmental and academic challenges while researching. Strong winds and storms made the research challenging, and academic skepticism required accurate documentation of the cities’ vast scale.
Published in Nature, findings from these researches show that these settlements existed between the 8th and the 11th centuries under the rule of a mighty Turkic dynasty. The archaeologists reveal that perhaps these highland locations utilized the forceful winds of this region in iron smelting. But this iron smelting might have also caused environmental instability and thus led to deforestation and slides that finally threw the communities out.
Experts outside the research have applauded the findings of the discovery. Peter Frankopan, of Oxford University, and Zachary Silvia, at Brown University, highlighted its contribution toward improving knowledge about medieval Asian urbanism while Frankopan described it as this “remarkable treasure trove,” revealing the networks of ancient civilizations and their exploitation of natural resources.