The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to kitchens in Europe, America, China, and elsewhere in East Asia. Continue reading
For well over a century scholars from across the social and biological sciences have been trying to understand the origins and spread of agriculture. This debate is often intertwined with discussions of climate change and human environmental impact. Over the past decade, this debate has spread into Central Eurasia, from western China to Ukraine and southern Russia to Turkmenistan, Continue reading
Spengler, R. N., M. D. Frachetti, P. N. Doumani, L. M. Rouse, B. Cerasetti, E. Bullion, A. N. Mar’yashev
2014. Early agriculture and crop transmission among Bronze Age mobile pastoralists of
Central Eurasia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281: 20133382. Peer-reviewed.
Available open access through ProcB.
Archaeological research in Central Eurasia is exposing unprecedented scales of trans-regional interaction and technology transfer between East Asia and southwest Asia deep into the prehistoric past. This article presents a new archaeobotanical analysis from pastoralist campsites in the mountain and desert regions of Central Eurasia that documents the oldest known evidence for domesticated grains Continue reading
Spengler, Robert N., III, and George Willcox
2013. Archaeobotanical Results from Sarazm, Tajikistan, an Early Bronze Age Village on the Edge: Agriculture and Exchange. Journal of Environmental Archaeology 10(3): 211-221. Peer-reviewed.
Volume 18, Issue 3 (October 2013), pp. 189-190
Animal–plant interactions on the Iranian plateau and in adjacent areas: Using bioarchaeological methods in the reconstruction of agro-pastoral practices
Neolithic in the Near East Guest Editors: Margareta Tengberg and Marjan Mashkour
Sarazm is an agricultural settlement located in the Zerafshan Valley of northwestern Tajikistan; it was occupied from the fourth to the end of the third millennia BC. Located on the northeastern edge of a chain of agricultural settlements (Namazga IV) that span the northern foothill ecotone of the Kopet Dag, Sarazm sat on a crossroads of exchange and interaction. Being at the eastern extremity of this chain Continue reading
