ABSTRACT
Archeological study of sites in southern Turkmenia from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age, along with special complex paleogeographic studies, has made it possible to reconstruct for that territory — more completely than for other centers of settled farming in our country — the history of the appearance and development of agriculture as the most important productive component of the economy. When one considers that the territory in question is in a zone of dry, subtropical climate, the history of farming becomes particularly interesting, for from the very earliest stages of habitation, i.e., since the sixth millennium B.C., it assumed the form of irrigation agriculture. The relative stability of the climate of the subtropics for the last eight to ten thousand years and the fundamental similarity of natural conditions, on the whole, during the Neolithic, Aeneolithic, Bronze, and Early Iron ages to present-day landscapes, confirmed by a series of paleogeographic studies, make it possible to state that the tribes of southern Turkmenia developed their economies in accordance with canons that were generally typical of the arid regions of Central Asia and the Near East.
