干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Protohistoric populations of the southern steppes experienced a series of significant changes in settlement and material culture between the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC) and the end of the Iron Age. Analysis of new archaeozoological data from Turkmen sites and re-examination of published data from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan reveal considerable economic flexibility and adaptive responses to the variety of ecosystems. They indicate that localised cultural choices, perhaps responding to local environmental constraints, persisted throughout this period, despite successive cultural or political shifts, including the Achaemenid conquest of the region in the sixth century BC.