Archaeologists have found the remains of two medieval cities along the ancient silk route in the mountains of eastern Uzbekistan.
- Known for the exchange of goods and ideas between the East and West, Silk trade routes were long believed to have linked lowland cities.
- But using drone-based LiDAR — Light Detection and Ranging technology, archeologists have now found at least two highland cities that sat along a key crossroad of the trade routes.
- US and Uzbekistan-based researchers mapped the archeological sites, which dated back to the era between 1000-1400 CE.
- The two cities, Tugunbulak and Tashbulak, are located in the Malguzar mountain range.
- Tugunbulak is located at more than 2,000m above sea level. The team believes Tugunbulak and the smaller city, Tashbulak, were bustling settlements between the 8th and 11th centuries, during the Middle Ages, when the area was controlled by a powerful Turkic dynasty.
- The team first discovered Tashbulak, the smaller city, in 2011 while trekking in the mountains. They found burial sites, thousands of pottery shards and other signs that the territory was populated.
- The new study was published on October 23 in the journal Nature.
- This was the first-ever use of cutting-edge drone-based LiDAR in Central Asia. LiDAR is a detection method that uses light pulses to measure distances to the earth, in this case from a drone.
