The Sintashta culture is widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Iranian languages. The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare. Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture
Evidence of wheat, copper and millet gives clues to the first connections between West and East were made in the Bronze Age and archaeologists are finding clues of the specific routes that were taken. A current best guess is for a steppe connection at the beginning of the third millennium BC (3000 BCE) and a ‘silk road’ connection at the end of the 3rd millennium (2000 BCE). However, a much earlier connection (the sixth millennium BC) is still arguable
The Persian-speaking Tajik minorities of Central Asia, who still form the majority of the population in the picturesque Silk Route cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, are living witnesses to the Iranian presence in the heart of Asia which dates back to prehistoric times.
The Achaemenid Empire expanded as far as the Oxus today's Amu Daryai River in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, in and the Jaxartes today's Syr Darya River in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan to the north and north-east.
Even if you slept through history class, there is something mysterious and timeless about petroglyphs – puzzling over the messages, events, and culture communicated to us from ancient peoples and civilizations. While much has been lost on the Silk Road, in the harsh passage of time, these drawings have survived endless trials for thousands of years,… Continue reading Petroglyphs in Kyrgyzstan
Silk Road Research 