The Rise and Decline of the Desert Cities. The Last Stages of the BMAC at Togolok 1 (Southern Turkmenistan)

Archaeological research has traditionally focused on the centres of urban development in the ancient world, across the Loess plains, along the Indus, and throughout the Fertile Crescent and adjacent foothills. Urban development in southern Central Asia, along the northern rim of the Iranian Plateau and into the oases of the Karakum, has received far less attention. Collaborative multiproxy research has clarified many previously unexplored aspects of the urban flourishing and paleoeconomy. Here, we showcase new data from the ongoing excavations of the occupation layers at Togolok 1 in the Murghab alluvial fan, from the late third to the mid-second millennium BCE. Archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and paleoclimatic data can better clarify the long developmental trajectories of economic and environmental change across this key area of urban development.