Central Asia has play a important part in colligate the East and the West throughout history , and archeologists believe that much is still undiscovered . Unfortunately , some key part are presently not approachable to researchers due to Taliban job . Therefore , a squad from the University of Chicago has get to apply satellite data to do distant archeology .
The collaboration is funded by the US Department of State and they now have access to commercial-grade artificial satellite data , US undercover agent satellite picture , and military drone image . These prototype are 10 metre good than publicly useable I . The undertaking also has the benediction of Mohammad Ashraf Ghan , the World Bank ’s former top anthropologist and current President of the United States of Afghanistan .
The squad has latterly discovered 119 caravan inn , essentially roadside hostel where travelers could rest . They are about 20 km ( 12.4 miles ) apart , which was equivalent to one 24-hour interval of change of location for large caravans . The inn are locate on the road that tie in the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent to Isfahan , the chapiter of the powerful Safavid Empire .
The caravan on the route often transported precious shipment like silk , gem , and spice , as well as more affordable cargo like dry out fish . The sites date to the late-16th and the early-17th one C . For a long time , archeologists had assumed that both the route and the Safavids empire was in declination after Europeans began beam ships to Asia during the former 1500s . However , findings in the last 20 years show including the caravanserais show that that the very opposite was lawful .
“ There is a long - put up view that once the Portuguese enroll the Indian Ocean no one bothered to sweep Central Asia , ” undertaking managing director Kathryn Franklin toldScience . “ But this bear witness a huge infrastructure investment of the Safavids a century by and by . ”
The team has also discovered over 1,000 ancient villages , town , or metropolis that come after the class of the Balkhab river as it shift course over more than a millenary . Understanding when these villages were inhabited will help archaeologist gain insight into the Silk Road , which was the trade arterial blood vessel between the East and West for century .
The researchers are not just using aerial sight of the areas in question , but also employing unpublished fieldwork diary and 15,000 - class - old exposure . They even got some adjourn archeologists ( who were there before the Soviet invasion of ‘ 79 ) to help unionize this telling collection .
A expectant subset of images and geospatial mapping are now publically available and can be see on the Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscape ( CAMEL ) webpage .
[ H / T : Science ]
