ABSTRACT
The evolution of early farming in southern Turkmenistan was a turning point in the development of the productive forces of the prehistoric population of the USSR. The mechanism of this process is of great importance from both theoretical and practical points of view. There is no doubt whatsoever that the evolution of agriculture was a complicated process shaped by both social and natural factors. On the one hand, this process largely depended on the social development of the population throughout a vast area embracing the Near and Middle East in the course of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. On the other hand, it was stimulated by environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of ancient forms of agriculture in certain areas. The aim of the present article is an attempt to analyze the natural factors that favored the evolution of the earliest forms of agriculture in southern Turkmenia, and that imposed certain restrictions on its subsequent development there.
