Introduction to a previously unknown ancient culture in Afghanistan dating to 1000 BC

What is it about?

In an area previously thought to be abandoned for over 1500 years, our archaeological project found over 20 settlements dating to about 1000 BC, forcing scholars to rethink their ideas of the settlement of this region. The article shows that the area was intensively settled using canals for irrigated agriculture, the first example of it in this area.

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Why is it important?

Generations of scholars have claimed that southwest Afghanistan was vacant between the end of the elaborate settlements of the Bronze Age around 2000 BC and the empires of the Persians about 500 BC. Our research in the 1970s discovered a culture with unique archaeological characteristics dating to about 1000 BC and upsetting this long-held wisdom. This culture, that we call Early Iron Age, was first identified in the Sar-o-Tar desert east of the Helmand River. One of these sites was excavated and we identified over 20 others from this time period. It shows a complex society that used lengthy irrigation canals to foster irrigated agriculture where it was previously assumed there was no one. Our finds are causing a rewriting of Afghanistan's early history.