Arboreal crops on the medieval Silk Road: Archaeobotanical studies at Tashbulak.

ABSTRACT: During the first millennium A.D., Central Asia was marked by broad networks of exchange and interaction, what many historians collectively refer to as the "Silk Road". Much of this contact relied on high-elevation mountain valleys, often linking towns and caravanserais through alpine territories. This cultural exchange is thought to have reached a peak in the late first millennium A.D., and these exchange networks fostered the spread of domesticated plants and animals across Eurasia. However, few systematic studies have investigated the cultivated plants that spread along the trans-Eurasian exchange during this time. New archaeobotanical data from the archaeological site of Tashbulak (800-1100 A.D.) in the mountains of Uzbekistan is shedding some light on what crops were being grown and co

SUBMITTER: Spengler RN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6091944 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature