-c. 40,000 BC- homo sapiens arrive in modern-day Central Asia (during the Ice Age).
-Developed agriculture c. 6000 BC, growing primarily wheat and barley.
-Trade soon began to occur between the various cultures developing in modern-day India, Iran, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
-c. 5000-3000 BC- north of the agricultural communities (mostly in southern Turkmenistan) were mostly hunter-gatherer and fishing communities. It was during this time (as early as 4800 BC) that the horse was domesticated.
-c. 3000-2500 BC- legit towns begin to crop up in modern-day Turkmenistan.
-Evidence of irrigated farming, crafts, writing, and metallurgy.
-One town in particular, Altyndepe (AKA Altyn Depe, Altïn-Depe, "Golden Hill"; near modern-day Aşgabat, Turkmenistan), had a ziggurat built (most likely to worship the ancient Mesopotamian moon god Sīn (AKA Suen, Nanna, etc.)).
-c. 2000 BC- Agricultural tribes/clans/families begin to migrate to the steppe, becoming pastoral nomads there. It was also during this time that Indo-Europeans began to migrate into the area, bringing with them equestrian-based warfare, wheeled carts, and war chariots.
-c. 1000 BC- Iranian pastoral peoples begin to migrate into the region (either from the north, the south, or both).
-Also around this time we see the appearance of the composite bow, which really changed the game in terms of warfare since it was easily portable, powerful, and could be fired from horseback with some training.
-The widespread use of composite bows as well as equestrian-based warfare and the development of using iron weapons caused warfare to become more intense, which resulted in tribes organizing themselves into unions and confederations in order to better wage war and/or protect themselves from invaders.
-Population density remained pretty low outside of any agrarian settlements since nomads didn't require having huge families in order to maintain farms.
-Over time nomad families began to form clans and soon tribes (unions of clans), sometimes by force (for the latter).
-These nomadic tribes never really formed into official states with explicitly defined borders (which came with sedentary, agrarian societies) since they tended to move around so much.
-Trade between empires and civilizations eventually began to occur, with commerce and trade often passing through Central Asia./
-For example, caravans from the Achaemenid Empire (559-330 BC) would pass through Central Asia in order to get to China (and vice versa).
-This marked the beginning of what would eventually come to be known as the Silk Road, and since the nomads often benefited from these caravans passing through they ensured that these routes had their protection as well, especially since they could be extremely dangerous to traverse.
-For example, the Gobi Desert ("gobi" means desert in Mongolian) could be especially inhospitable, as well as the Taklamakan Desert ("Taklamakan" roughly translates from Uygher as "Place of No Return" haha but it could also mean "The Place of Ruins" which is cool) and the Qara Qum Desert (AKA Karakum, Kara-kum, Gara-Gum, Garagum, etc. ("Black Sands" in various Turkik languages)).
-Soon, these towns (usually built around oases) grew into city-states.
-These city-states were quite cosmopolitan, aristocratic, mercantile, and usually spoke an Iranian language.
-The Turkic-Mongolian nomads, on the other hand, tended to not really establish city-states or any kind of permanent settlement.
-Instead, they tended to set up an ordu (AKA orda or ordo), or "camp of the ruler" (which probably over time came to mean "capital city")), which usually meant a bunch of tents and maybe some crudely-built temporary buildings rather than what we'd imagine being a legit "city".
-The military-political core of the city-state was the arqlarq (AKA kuhandîz/quhandîz/kundîz/kundûz), meaning "old fort / citadel", often located in the middle of the city.
-Farms usually sounded the city, typically producing melons, grapes, vegetables, grains, and other various kinds of vegetables and shit; they also produced cloth, ceramics, glassware, weapons, etc.
-It's also important to keep in mind that these Central Asian city-states weren't just set up to accommodate traveling merchants, as they actually actively contributed to these flow of goods as well.
-Many merchants based out of these city-states grew extremely rich and had huge homes and lots of political power at the local level.
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