ArcheoLogica Data 3/2023

The purpose of this short paper is to attempt the interpretation of the use of ceramics in grave goods of the necropolises of Farkhor, Gelot, Darnaichi, in Southern Tajikistan, since Late Eneolithic to the Middle Bronze Age (2800-1900 B.C.). In that period and beyond, until around 1350 B.C., Southern Tajikistan was part, with Southern Uzbekistan and North-western Afghanistan (the ancient region of Bactria), of a broader cultural horizon which included Southern Turkmenistan too. Here, an urban civilization had developed, named Namazga culture after Namazga Tepe, one of its most important sites. From the analysis of the grave goods of the Tajik necropolises we can see that the presence of pottery in burials increased very gradually between the beginning of the 3rd and the first centuries of the 2nd millennium B.C. In Farkhor, the most ancient of the three cemeteries, the percentage of the burials without ceramics is higher than in Gelot and Darnaichi between the Middle and the Late Bronze Age (2400-1900 B.C.), leaving out Kangurttut 2, the excavation of which is still at the beginning. The non-ceramics burial furniture consists of beads and jewelry in semiprecious stones, rare bronze objects, such as spear points, daggers, cosmetic sticks, or pins. More excavations are necessary in Southern Tajikistan to understand the cultural process which brought to the prevalence of ceramic as main constituent element. Even considering that Farkhor is the largest necropolis, the proportion between burials with and without ceramics in Gelot and Darnaichi is higher than in Farkhor: 14 with to 2 without at Gelot and 13 with to 2 without at Darnaichi, while at Farkhor the proportion is of 20 burials with pottery and 33 without.