Drone-mounted lidar helped reveal Tashbulak, a 12-hectare city near Tugunbulak SAIElab, J. Berner, M. Frachetti
More than 2000 metres above sea level, on a grassy mountain plateau in eastern Uzbekistan, two archaeologists out for a stroll discovered something astonishing. This chilly, wild landscape was once home to two sprawling cities, whose markets bustled with travellers from the Silk Road trade routes that linked China to the West. All that was left of these millennia-old communities were thousands of pottery shards, scattered across the plateau – and the heavily eroded earth mounds and troughs that marked where buildings, walls and…
