The Historical Position of Central Asian Civilization

Abstract

The investigations of Soviet archeologists have not only thrown new light on the ancient cultures of Bactria, Sogd, Parthia and Khorezm from the 3rd century B.C.E. to the 3rd century C.E., with their urban civilization, developed script, circulation of money and commercial economy, but make it possible to undertake a study of the genesis of all these phenomena, starting with the first steps in the evolution of an economy of a food-producing type. Today it is absolutely clear that many of these characteristics go back to the time when class society developed in the settled oases of Central Asia, when it was part of the Achaemenid Empire. Moreover, the discovery of major fortified centers and advanced irrigation systems of the 9th to 7th centuries B.C.E. in the southern parts of Central Asia permits us to refer the process of the establishment of early class society to even more remote antiquity. This finds some confirmation in the Avesta, testifying to the existence of a large political entity, (1) and to a degree echoing the legends of pre-Achaemenid Bactria.

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