Karakalpak-Australian Excavations in Ancient Chorasmia, 2001–2005: Interim Report on the Fortifications of Kazakl'i-Yatkan and Regional Survey

Betts, Alison; Yagodin, Vadim N.; Helms, S. W.; Khozhaniyazov, Gairatdin; Amirov, Shamil S.; Negus-Cleary, M.

doi:10.1080/05786967.2009.11864758

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The cultural influences of the Achaemenids became deeply imbued within Chorasmia, appearing in new religious practices, hydraulic engineering, architecture, and almost certainly in the public activities of its rulers. All of these can be seen at Akchakhan-kala (Yagodin et al 2009;Betts et al 2009;Kidd & Betts 2010;Betts et al 2015;Minardi & Betts 2016;Minardi 2016c) Akchakhan-kala (Betts et al 2009;Kidd & Betts 2010) is a massive fortified site founded around the end of the 3 rd or early 2 nd centuries BCE and abandoned in early "Kushan" times 2 , around the 2 nd century CE (Fig. 4).…”

Section: Akchakhan-kalamentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Chorasmian Wall Painting From Akchakhan-Kala

Minardi¹,

Betts²,

Grenet³

et al. 2018

l'Orient Est Son Jardin

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Section: Akchakhan-kalamentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Chorasmian Wall Painting From Akchakhan-Kala

Minardi¹,

Betts²,

Grenet³

et al. 2018

l'Orient Est Son Jardin

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“…Throughout the first millennium BC and first millennium AD at Kyuzely-gyr and other Prisarykamysh sites, in spite of the new canals there remain few traces of ancient agricultural fields; the emphasis on pastoralism continues; settlements lay in dispersed, low-density patterns reflective of semi-mobility; and the landscape is marked with numerous ‘nomadic’ kurgan burial sites (Negus Cleary, 2015a; Tsalkin, 1966: 108–157; Vaynberg, 1979a, 1979b). Monumental art at Kyuzeli-gyr and Kalaly-gyr 1 and textual sources indicate links with the Achaemenid Empire (Betts, 2006; Betts et al, 2009, 2016; Helms et al, 2001, 2002; Kidd et al, 2008; Yagodin et al, 2010). This suggests to us that the power of newly established elites in Khorezm was not, at least initially, built upon a shift to intensive farming, but rather may have come from exchange .…”

Section: The Khorezm Oasismentioning

confidence: 99%

Millet cultivation in Central Asia: A response to Miller et al.

et al. 2017

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In a recent special issue of The Holocene, Miller et al. review the evidence for the spread of millet ( Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica) across Eurasia. Among their arguments, they contend that millet cultivation came to Eurasian regions with hot, dry summers when irrigation was introduced, as part of a region-wide shift toward agricultural intensification in the first millennium BC. This hypothesis seems to align with the pattern of agricultural change observed in the Khorezm oasis, a Central Asian polity of the first millennium BC and first millennium AD. While we wholeheartedly accept this hypothesis for its explanatory value regarding trends across Eurasia, in this paper we nevertheless suggest that the introduction of millet to Central Asia needs further explication. Specifically, we seek to address the underlying assumption that this introduction was predicated upon centrally organized, state-level land development, increased sedentism, and the rise of Mesopotamian-style social complexity. We describe how millet cultivation in Khorezm was preceded by multi-resource strategies that included the cultivation of summer crops, and emphasize that this earlier history mattered significantly to the evolution of Khorezmian society and agriculture in the first millennium BC. In contrast to the imperial systems of West Asia, in Khorezm the introduction of complex irrigation works supported the expansion and greater stratification of pre-existing agropastoral lifeways, and helped to buttress the rise of nomadic elites within an agrarian zone. We believe the example of Khorezm is important because it helps to explain the emergence of integrated mobile-sedentist societies in the first millennium AD in Central Asia as a result of agricultural change. It also provides cultural and historical context to the spread of millet cultivation in the first millennium BC, suggesting that this phenomenon had significantly different implications for societies across Eurasia.

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“…5 This multi-disciplinary group mapped sites, ancient canals and river beds, and conducted extensive excavations at most of the major monuments. Since 1995 excavations in the Tash-k'irman oasis, one of the last unstudied areas on the east bank of the Amu-dar'ya, have been conducted under the auspices of the University of Sydney Central Asian Program (USCAP) 6 and the Karakalpak Branch of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences as the Karakalpak-Australian Expedition (KAE) with a particular focus on the major site of Akchakhan-kala (Kidd, Negus-Cleary and Baker-Brite 2012;Kidd and Betts 2010;Yagodin et al 2009;Betts et al 2009;Kidd et al 2008;Betts et al 2005;Helms et al 2002;Helms et al 2001;Helms and Yagodin 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Akchakhan-kala is perhaps the largest, and has proved to be certainly among the richest, of the sites known in ancient Chorasmia. Based on present evidence (Betts et al 2009), it was founded around the end of the third century or early second century bce and was abandoned in early "Kushan" times, 7 around the second century ce. The site saw a partial re-occupation in "Kushan-Afrighid" times when the Area 11 donjon was built among the standing ruins of the earlier site, dated, based on the ceramics, to the late fourth to fifth centuries ce.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%