Handmade painted ware in Koktepe: some elements for the chronology of early Iron Age in northern Sogdiana

Abstract : An early Iron Age settlement was discovered in the earliest layers of Koktepe site (Sogdiana, Uzbekistan), dated by C14 to the second half of the 2nd and the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The pottery is typical of the Painted Ware cultures and for the first time in Central Asia it was possible to divide it into two stages related to the stratigraphy. On the basis of the observations made in Koktepe, the authors consider that spouted cooking pots are a late chronological marker and they propose to synchronise Koktepe with the neighbouring regions of Sogdiana and Chach, thus giving some preliminary elements about the evolution of the Early Iron Age culture of Central Asia.