Food globalization in southern Central Asia: archaeobotany at Bukhara between antiquity and the Middle Ages

Abstract

The Silk Road is a modern name for a globalization phenomenon that marked an extensive network of communication and exchange in the ancient world; by the turn of the second millennium AD, commercial trade linked Asia and supported the development of a string of large urban centers across Central Asia. One of the main arteries of the medieval trade routes followed the middle and lower Zarafshan River and was connected by mercantile cities, such as Samarkand and Bukhara. Bukhara developed into a flourishing urban center between the fourth and sixth centuries AD, served as the capital of the Samanid court between AD 893 and 999, and remained prosperous into the Qarakhanid period (AD 999–1220), until the Mongol invasion in AD 1220. We present the first archaeobotanical study from this ancient center of education, craft production, artistic development, and commerce. Radiocarbon dates and an archaeological chronology that has been developed for the site show that our samples cover a range between the third and eleventh centuries AD. These samples from Bukhara represent the richest systematically collected archaeobotanical assemblage thus far recovered in Central Asia. The assemblage includes spices and both annual and perennial crops, which allowed Sogdians and Samanids to feed large cities in river oases surrounded by desert and arid steppe and supported a far-reaching commercial market in the first millennium AD.

Agriculture along the upper part of the Middle Zarafshan River during the first millennium AD: A multi-site archaeobotanical analysis

“…Nut shells were recovered in the Afrasiab midden and the Kuk-Tosh cesspit in a carbonized state. It is unlikely that we have identified the earliest introduction of mulberry, fig, and pomegranate, as art historical evidence [ 15 ] shows that Sogdians were at least familiar with pomegranate (for a summary of early depictions of pomegranate in Central Asia, see [ 57 ]). Figs, mulberries, and pomegranates were either imported and associated with an elite segment of society prior to the Islamic conquest, or preservation biases make the fruit archaeobotanically invisible prior to the recovery of mineralized remains from ninth century AD cesspits.…”