Archeological Conservation Work in Khorezm: Results and Perspectives

Abstract

Throughout the last five-year period and the first years of the present one, the Khorezm Archeological and Ethnographic Expedition has pursued its studies in the southern Aral region and in the Inner Kyzyl-Kum, on the ancient dry beds of the Zeravshan River. The main directions of these studies continue to be problems of ethnogenesis, ethnic history, the traditional culture, and the social order of the ancient agricultural population and its semi-nomadic and nomadic periphery on the northern plains of Central Asia; questions of the earliest settlements and human occupation of the delta plains of the Amu-Dar'ia, the Syr-Dar'ia, the Zeravshan, and also the territory of the Inner Kyzyl-Kum and its stagnant basins; and the problems of the genesis and development of irrigation agriculture in the lower reaches of the Amu-Dar'ia and the Syr-Dar'ia. The chronological framework of these studies is extremely broad: from the sixth millennium b.c.e. to the Middle Ages. The latter is important not only from the standp...