Settlement Dynamics, Territory Exploitation, and Trade Routes in the Ancient Samarkand Oasis (Uzbekistan)

The Samarkand Region is one of the most important areas in Central Asia in terms of quality and quantity of archaeological sites and historical monuments. Since 1999 the activities of the Uzbek-Italian Archaeological Project Samarkand and Its Territory were devoted to the recovery of traces of ancient human activities in the southern part of the region, in order to reconstruct the major settlement phases and the territorial transformations occurred in the area. The present paper will focus on the methodological framework employed in the identification of the archaeological sites, their chronological attribution, as well as a first interpretation of the settlement dynamics in relation to the development of the irrigation network and the major commercial routes linking Samarkand to its neighbors