Feature of the Oasis Topography
In the narrow mountain valleys of Fergana, the terrain was skillfully utilized for fortification purposes. Settlements were located in such a way that they controlled significant areas of the valley, creating a complex defense system for the oases.
A distinctive feature of the oasis topography is the extremely close proximity of settlements and burial sites.
Burial sites are usually located in immediate proximity to settlements. This is particularly evident in the densely populated valley of the Khoja-Bakirgan River, where burial sites, like the settlements, occupied high floodplain terraces.
The wide chronological range of the materials obtained allows for tracing the dynamics of the development of sedentary agricultural culture in the area. As noted above, settlement in the southwestern foothills was particularly intense in the first centuries A.D. Numerous burial sites date back to this time. The presence of settlements can be inferred from ceramic finds made in various locations in the area.
Layers from this period are marked as destroyed or overlain by later constructions (Davidovich; Litvinsky, 1955; Brykina, 1974, 1982). The peak of sedentary agricultural life in the area dates back to the mid-1st millennium A.D. In the second half of the 1st millennium A.D., there was a sharp reduction in settlements. Life ceased in most of them. Layers from the 9th century and later are noted only in Tagap, Andarkhan, Morgun, and Karabulak. The latter became a major craft center in the 11th-12th centuries. The reduction in the number of settlements is not a local feature of the southwestern foothills. A.N. Bernshtein similarly noted this phenomenon in eastern Fergana.
A.N. Bernshtein was inclined to explain this process by internal socio-economic development factors in the region - the rapid growth of cities and the formation of feudal centers at the expense of the decline of small settlements (Bernshtein, 1952).
Currently, the valley of the Khoja-Bakirgan River is the most thoroughly studied. Three major settlements and burial sites located in immediate proximity to the settlements are known here.
The earliest settlement occupied four platforms at the foot of the ridge that closed off the valley to the south, on the right bank of the Khoja-Bakirgan River. On one of the platforms, part of a room was uncovered, the walls of which were made of adobe bricks. On the slope of the ridge, a rampart that limited the settlement to the east is clearly visible. According to local residents, there was a rampart at a distance of 200-250 meters from the foot of the ridge that enclosed the settlement to the north and northwest.
The western boundary of the settlement was the river. A huge amount of ceramics has been collected from the surface of the settlement and during the excavation of the room: large molded hemispherical bowls, large thin-walled pottery dishes, fragments of red-unglazed ware. These finds allow us to conclude that life in the settlement took place in the first centuries A.D.
Further down the river on its right bank was the largest settlement in the valley. It is difficult to judge its area since the entire site, except for a small remnant, is occupied by the modern village of Beshkent. Finds made at a significant distance from the remnant suggest considerable dimensions of the settlement.
The earliest finds are fragments of thin-walled ceramics with incised ornamentation. They allow us to date the initial period of the settlement's life to the first centuries A.D. Extensive rooms, which were part of some public building from the 6th-7th centuries, were uncovered on the remnant. This same period dates the burial of a girl, performed in a hum, discovered by local residents. The buried girl had a large number of ornaments.
Life in the settlement did not cease in the 9th-10th centuries. Then, apparently, a long break occurred. Judging by separate fragments of ceramics, life in the settlement resumed in the 14th-15th centuries. In the 19th - early 20th centuries, Beshkent (Tagob) was one of the largest villages in the valley. It was the center of the Beshkent economic region, formed in the early 20th century (Tursunov, 1976). Tagob was also the administrative center of the Beshkent rural community of the Chapkul district (Lykoshin, 1906). It had a market used by residents not only of nearby villages but also of relatively distant ones. It can be assumed that in the first half of the 1st millennium A.D., this settlement was the center of the area. This is evidenced by its considerable size and the presence of public buildings (Brykina, 1966, 1962).
Andarkhan Burial Site