Two high-altitude, medieval cities built by mobile herders along Silk Road trade routes in Central Asia have been hiding in plain sight — until now.
Mountainous regions typically have been seen as obstacles to trade and communication. But these ancient settlements, located roughly 2,000 meters above sea level, show that herding communities developed a distinctive form of urban life where such activities thrived, archaeologist Michael Frachetti and colleagues report October 23 in Nature.
“Think of these high-altitude cities as nodes in a network that moved power and trade through Asia and Europe,” says Frachetti, of Washington University in St. Louis.
Previous excavations at the high-altitude Tugunbulak site in
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