The Earliest Wheeled Transport In Southwestern Central Asia
L.B. Kirtcho
The
study of Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Early Bronze Age sites in Southwestern Central Asia suggests that Southern Turkmenistan and possibly northern
Khorasan were source areas of early farming cultures, which eventually evolved into the early urban civilization of Western Central Asia, as evidenced
by the late 3rd millennium site of Altyn-Depe (Masson, 1981: 96-108) and the late 3rd - early 2nd millennia BC Orientaltype proto-urban center at
Gonur-Depe - the capital of Margiana (Sarianidi, 2005).
The cultural and technological basis of the proto-urban centers of Southern Turkmenia formed in the late 4th and the early 3rd millennia BC. These processes occurred under intense contacts both with neighboring territories and with more remote and more advanced regions of the Near East (Kirtcho, 2008; Masson, 1981: 109-118). A key role in these cultural interactions was played by transportation, since regular contacts and especially trade are impossible without adequate means of transportation.
The stages in the evolution of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age wheeled transport of Western Central Asia were first described by E.E. Kuzminykh (1980) based on the studies conducted in the 1950s-1970s. Many of his principal conclusions remain valid, although generally earlier dates were suggested in more recent studies.
Thanks to archaeological excavations at Altyn-Depe, conducted in the 1980s - early 2000s, and to the analysis of unpublished materials, new evidence has appeared, bearing on the types of carts and the ways animals were harnessed in Southwestern Central Asia in the late 4th - early 3rd millennia BC.