| This thesis concerns the development of the Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex (the BMAC), a late Bronze Age culture (ca. 2000 BC) in the desert oases of Central Asia. The results of collaborative Soviet-American excavations at one of the oasis sites, Gonur depe in Turkmenistan, are used to evaluate the large corpus of Soviet data concerning this culture. A Western chronological and methodological framework complemented that of the Soviets in their on-going fieldwork. My analysis included the study of ceramics, small finds, radiocarbon dates, stratigraphy, architecture, botanical, and faunal remains.;Soviet research in the Murgab River delta (ancient Margiana) has revealed a large area of late Bronze Age sites. This area can be divided into three linear groups of sites suggesting that settlement was organized along deltaic branches or canals in the oasis. My study of ceramics indicates only two periods of widespread occupation. Radiocarbon dates (2200-1800 B.C.) indicate that the region was contemporary with distant urban states. The culture of Margiana is indigenous, not derived from cultures with similar styles as had been suggested by previous research.;The development of the oasis culture was a two stage process. The distinctive non-urban oasis architecture and subsistence economy was established in the first widespread occupation. The BMAC emerged only in the second period of occupation. BMAC style bronze seals, figurative axes, stone amulets, cylinder seals, and steatite and alabaster vessels were exported to Iran and the Indus valley, while few imports were found in Margiana. This large scale expansion may have been a factor in the collapse of urbanism on the Iranian plateau and in the Indus valley.;I conclude by evaluating the origins of the BMAC in the context of the Central Asian sequence and the reasons for its development. The emergence of the BMAC may be related to the consolidation of local political control in a pattern similar to later Central Asian khans. |
