Excavations at Chopantam and Takhirbai-tepe 1: The Bronze and Iron Ages in the Murghab alluvial fan in Turkmenistan

In the arid Murghab alluvial fan of south-central Turkmenistan, the Bronze and Iron Age campsite Chopantam (UTM 41N, E426997, N4205644) and the urban center Takhirbai-tepe 1 (UTM 41N, E419755, N4213686) were excavated between 2000 and 2002 and in 2006 for Chopantam and between 1991 and 1993 for Takhirbai-tepe 1, as part of “The Archaeological Map of the Murghab Delta” project (AMMD; 1990-2009). Short initial publications on the excavations at both sites have provided essential insights into the region’s long-term social and landscape developments, highlighting the Murghab's significance in ancient Central Asia’s intercultural interactions, political trajectories, and exchange networks.

Nevertheless, the majority of the excavated materials from these sites remain insufficiently analyzed, depriving archaeological research of a key regional dataset necessary for interpreting the poorly understood periods of the Bronze-Iron Age transition and the Iron Age (mid-2nd millennium BC to early 1st millennium BC). A comprehensive contextual study, combining both traditional and laboratory analyses, along with the publication of the extensive data collected at the sites – including ceramics, metals, stone artifacts, botanical and faunal remains, and human skeletons – will provide unparalleled, large-scale data for investigating the material culture, subsistence systems, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the protohistoric Murghab region. The research will provide a new regional synthesis of the long-term material, sociocultural, and environmental evolution of Central Asia’s Bronze and Iron Ages.

The publication project is directed by Dr. Elise Luneau.