MurAL – Murghab Archaeological Landscape Project: Reconstructing the social-natural landscape of Bronze Age civilization in southern Central Asia

• Applicant: Lynne M. Rouse, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 453131168

The Oxus Civilization represents one of the earliest civilizations in Central Asia, dating to 3rd-2nd millennia BCE and covering territory in modern Turkmenistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Though the Oxus Civilization was a contemporary and trade partner with more well-known cultural-political entities in Mesopotamia, Iran, Arabia, and the Indus Valley, it rarely appears in archaeological textbooks and has almost no foothold in popular knowledge. Previous archaeological research on the Oxus has concentrated on a handful of urban centers and cemeteries, providing clues of a complex political-economic system and ideology. But no detailed study of the local landscape surrounding or enabling an Oxus urban center exists, and previous survey and geo-hydrological reconnaissance have not been comprehensively synthesized and analyzed for what they might reveal about Oxus landscape organization. There remain intriguing questions and substantial data gaps with regard to Oxus political structure, social and economic institutions, ecological strategies, and absolute chronology that a multi-scalar landscape archaeology project can reasonably address. This project, the Murghab Archaeological Landscape Project (MurAL) focuses on the northeast Murghab alluvial fan of modern Turkmenistan, a key heartland of the Oxus Civilization. Within this project, I will integrate unpublished archival data from archaeological survey, maps, and research notes (collected from the early 1980s to the late 1990s), new high-detail UAV mapping of previously un-surveyed areas, and scientific chronological data from soil (Optically Stimulated Luminescense, OSL) and organics (14C) collected during targeted excavations. These data combine localized scale and broad coverage and are critical to building the currently non-existent regional settlement landscape and geo-hydrological reconstruction of the Murghab as a core Oxus territory. Ultimately, this project feeds into ongoing research agendas whose goal is to develop a deeper understanding of integrated social and natural systems of the past, which are undoubtedly important for facing many of today's challenges.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants