Case Studies

Led by UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, the project is a five-year partnership between some 20 institutions from the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Republic of Uzbekistan, and the People’s Republic of China (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region).

The project documents the archaeological heritage of Central Asia, an area of about 5.7 million km2 stretching from the Caspian Sea to western China. The area has some of the most significant heritage of the Silk Roads, from megacities to market towns, mountain forts and desert caravanserai, complex water and irrigation systems, as well as religious sites which testify to the spread of ideas and beliefs through the area?. It also includes a vitally important range of prehistoric sites, evidence of agricultural development and early urban civilizations. Much of this heritage is undocumented, understudied and under threat from development projects, changing agricultural practices, urban expansion and the effects of the climate crisis.

Although some sites in the region are well documented, the information is often scattered across many archives. Also, the location of many sites is poorly recorded, especially where the record was created in the days before GPS and accessible maps. The project digitizes the disparate archives, drawing the data together to produce accurate locations for the sites. It links this information with official monument records to create a geographic information system for each country’s national record.

Local knowledge is crucial to safeguarding Central Asia’s cultural heritage and so CAAL is making information and training available locally. The project’s digital open access sites inventory will help local agencies to ensure that archaeology is considered as part of sustainable development policies.