This comment covers the Aral Sea and Khwarazm, as Khwarazm is on the peripheries of both this thread and the Persia one it's not totally clear where it should go, so the main post is here and I'll also give a preview of parts and link to it from the Persia thread. (Edit 10/21: I attached a (somewhat messy GIS file with the changes)
"Now the Sea of Khowarîzm [Aral] no longer exists; the waters of the Djeihûn [Amu] have found a new home and flow to the Khazar Sea [Caspian]"
-Hafîz Abrû, 1417 (quoted in Boroffka 2010, 292)
Left: overview of changes; Right: overview with potential extra location, see below
North Aral locations
New North Aral locations. The orange dots are the locations of archaeological sites dated to the Middle Ages in Boroffka et al (2003).
Location | Province | Area | Climate | Vegetation | Topography | Culture | Religion | Raw material | Population |
Akespe | North Aral | Desht-i Kipchak | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | Uzbek? | Sunni | | Low |
Aral | North Aral | Desht-i Kipchak | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | Uzbek? | Sunni | Salt | Low |
Kanbakty | North Aral | Desht-i Kipchak | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | Uzbek? | Sunni | | Very low |
Karashokat | North Aral | Desht-i Kipchak | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | Uzbek? | Sunni | | Very low |
As these are four new locations in a relatively isolated region, a new province of
North Aral is created for them. Suggestions for a more authentic name are welcome, and simply assigning them to existing provinces is also valid since this province is a creation of convenience with no evidence of connection historical administrative boundaries.
Akespe and
Aral are based on the location of archaeological sites dated to the Middle Ages, as reported in Boroffka et al (2003).
Kanbakty and
Karashokat are not based on known evidence of settlement in the Middle Ages (although there were archaeological finds for other periods), but on the known use of the route for trade in the period, as part of the Northern Silk Road:
Especially the qualitatively better finds from Akespe and Aral’sk indicate far distance commercial contacts along a northern branch of the Great Silk Road, running from Turkestan along the Syr Darya via Kyzyl Orda up to Dzhankent (Jangikent). One route then continued west around the northern shore of the Aral-Sea (Aral’sk and Akespe), on to the northern end of the Caspian Sea (Sarajchik) and up to eastern Central Europe. (Boroffka et al. 2005a, 77)
The most detailed data on this trade is given by Balducci Pegolotti… who wrote his guide for merchants around 1340…. Those who have goods should go to Urgench, since all kinds of goods sell well there; those who do not have them should go by a shorter route (north of the Aral Sea) from Saraichik directly to Otrar (50 days). (Barthold 1902, through Google Translate)
Dzhankent thrived for over a century on the crossroads of the two corridors, operating as a transshipping point (land – river – sea) for the east-west trade along the Northern Silk Road, and as a transit point for the north-south slave trade. (Härke et al 2020, 31)
A more tangible piece of evidence linking Dzhankent to the slave trade from the north to Central Asia is the town’s northern annexe: completely devoid of structures or buildings, it has a thick occupation layer containing keratin-eating microfungi, which implies that animals or humans had been penned up here; at the same time, low levels of phosphorus in the occupation layer point, in the opinion of the soil scientists on the project, to humans rather than animals. (Härke & Azhantseva 2021, 58-59)
Kanbakty follows the route to the west; Karashokat follows an old riverbed to the north, now dry but likely flowing during the game period (Boroffka et al 2003, 61; Boroffka et al 2005a, 81), on the assumption that settlement and/or travel would likely follow the river. Kanbakty and Karashokat could be represented as corridors instead, but since you depicted all the travel routes in this region as locations, and the area isn’t pure desert like the Sahara or Kyzylkum, I went with normal locations. Kanbakty overtaking the borders of Shagan is intentional, since it would align the borders with an abrupt elevation change at the end of a plateau, but not important.
Aral is given salt as a material, according to the suggestion by
@Neversa and a few brief comments by Boroffka et al (2003, 61-62). The other three locations I have no specific recommended materials for.
All four locations have names given according to villages in the area. Aral was in use as the name of settlement in the northeast Aral Sea by at least the 1700s, if perhaps not the modern village by that name or in the specific borders of this location, so I’m decently happy with the name. Akespe is a village in the same area as medieval sites, so I feel good about that one. Kanbakty and Karashokat I have no idea of the history of and so am open to suggestions.
The Aral Sea coastline
The current Aral Sea in game is roughly the 1960 water level, before the modern shrinkage. It would seem, based on general expectations and also the rework to the Dutch coastline presented in that feedback thread, that it’s desired to represent coastline and water levels according to what they were at roughly the start of the game. The situation for the Aral Sea is pretty clear for basically the first half of the game time generally, but unfortunately when you look at exactly 1337 it gets more complicated. The water level drops were caused by the destruction of dams and irrigation channels, the probably related shift of the Amu Darya to flow into Lake Sarykamysh, and potentially also use of water and climactic conditions.
For the general situation: for either all or almost all of the period between the Mongol conquest (~1220) and the late 16th century, it’s very clear that the water level of the Aral Sea should be low; at the most extreme periods very low. This is supported by written records, archaeological evidence of human settlement, and scientific evidence.
For 1337 specifically: unfortunately, that “almost all” above exists. Some of the sources describe a general regression (low water) lasting from the 13th century to the 16th, while some of the sources describe a brief but severe regression after the Mongols, followed by a brief transgression (high water) after recovery, followed by a long regression after Timur. For sources with the latter timeline, 1337 tends to land during the transgression or a mid-level period, not at the lowest water times. I will say, however, that a more recent source (Krivonogov et al 2014), which also serves as an analysis of data from many previous sources, indicates that faunal and sediment data seemingly depict the double regression model with a higher 1337, while other data depicts a single low point in this period.
So the final choice somewhat comes down to whether you want to better represent 1337 exactly or better represent the situation for nearly the entire first half of the game (or alternatively just do 1960, of course).
My preference is for the “first half of the game” option, depicting a low water level, but I don’t think it’s not unreasonable to choose a higher level.
In game terms this matters for two things:
The proposed location of Kerderi, which is known for a fact to be inhabited during the time of the game, cannot be represented without some level of water level reduction.
Lowering the water level will remove the Khwarazmian locations at the southern end of the lake from the lake edge. Because a) the sources for post-Mongol Khwarazm are extremely sparse, b) the area lost a lot of population in the Mongol invasion, and c) Khwarazmian society was seemingly not oriented towards the Aral in any meaningful way, I have zero evidence in the sources for any settlement in the area revealed by the lower water level (there’s also very little there in the modern day). This would leave three options for a lower water level: 1) extend the Khwarazmian locations to the new water level, making them very long (perhaps extend Xojeli northward to compensate? – if this is the desire I can suggest ways to split Xojeli as well, there are far more settlements down south that can be used); 2) leave the area empty; 3) add a new location in this area, with an invented or relocated name and a very low population. All three of these options have good arguments for and against them IMO, so I don’t really have a strong stance on what to do here, though the invented coastline location is probably my least favorite option. If people have ideas or opinions please share them.
This is my drawing of the Aral Sea low water level, Kerderi, and a hypothetical invented southern location (the ‘?’ location). Kerderi is discussed below. The Aral Sea coastline is roughly traced from a map in Boroffka et al (2006) of the water level in the “14th-15th cent.”, which can be seen below. The three dots show the location of the three archaeological sites associated with Kerderi: the Kerderi 1 and 2 mausoleums and Aral-Asar.
Location | Province | Area | Climate | Vegetation | Topography | Culture | Religion | Raw material |
Kerderi | Yangikent | Transoxiana | Cold Arid | Sparse | Flatland | Uzbek | Sunni | Wheat |
Kerderi is largely covered in the sources below about the Aral Sea. It’s described as “a rather developed industrial and agricultural community” where “[e]xtensive plant agriculture is evidenced by large pots used for storage of rice and wheat, and also by millstones…” (Krivonogov et al 2014, 290-291). That seems to indicate an agricultural RGO is appropriate, probably wheat, and a decent population, if you accept the earlier dates for it. Of course this relies on the Aral Sea water level being lowered, as covered above.
Everything suggested in this post aside from Kerderi, the hypothetical potential southern location, and the lake level itself is suggested regardless of what is done for the lake level.
Sources on the Aral Sea water level and Kerderi:
Based on archaeological data it was only during the A.D. fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries when the lake level was well below the present day lake level (Fig. 2c), though it is not recorded in both aquatic (dinoflagellate cysts, diatoms) and geochemical (Ca, Sr) proxies. This mismatch might be due to the actual age model available for this time period, which mostly relies on a correlation with the treering record of Esper et al. (2002) (see Sorrel et al. 2006). This regression is, however, witnessed by the mausoleum at Kerderi situated at 31 m a.s.l. Oberhänsli et al 2007, 179)
... we can conclude that from the beginning of the 13th to probably the second half of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th cent., the Aral Sea experienced a regression, which we can term the ‘medieval Aral crisis’. The available data allows us to differentiate two stages in the evolution of this crisis… the second stage from the 13th to the second half of the 16th cent. In the second stage we can observe two separate phases of the crisis: the first phase during the first half of the 13th cent., and the second phase from the end of the 14th to the second-half of the 16th cent.
…
After establishing the interrelationship between the political events at the beginning of the 13th cent, and the subsequent regression of the Aral Sea, we can designate this regression to the second quarter of the 13th cent…. At the same time, the left-bank part of late-Mongolian Khorezm, which was integrated into the Dzhuchi ulus, was rapidly restored…. In the stratigraphy of the bottom sediments the geologists recorded a new period of transgression, when the level of the Aral rose to 52 m a.s.l.... Correlating the historical evidence with the stratigraphy of sediments, we can date these events into a comparatively short period in the second-half of the 13th cent.
Priaral'ya experienced a new catastrophe at the end of the 14th cent., when Timur undertook five campaigns against Khorezm, destructive in their consequences. (Yagodin 2005, 317-319)
At the Aral’s present dried bottom, near the former Barsa-Kelmes Island, ruins of mausoleums and settlements were found by expeditions of Kyzylorda State University. They form two complexes: Kerderi-1 (25 km to the northeast of Barsa-Kelmes) and Kerderi-2 (15 km to the east of Barsa-Kelmes). They have altitude of about 34 meters; i.e., the depth there was 19 meters in the 1960s. The archeological age of these monuments varies in the literature: the 13th–14th, the 15th–16th, the 14th–early 15th, and the 13th–14th centuries A.D. The compromise age is assessed as the 14th century, and it is taken as the time of substantial water drop in the Aral Sea The catastrophic disappearance of the Aral Sea is recorded in the chronicles. The court historian Khafizi-Abru wrote in 1417 that Khorezmian Lake (the ancient name of the Aral Sea) did not exist any longer, and the Jeikhun River (Amu Darya) had taken a new course, flowing to the Khazarian (Caspian) Sea. This message was discussed by V.V. Bartol’d and L.S. Berg, but considered as an overstatement. However, the archeological monuments of Kerderi evidence that the recession of the Middle Ages in the Aral Sea level was comparable with the modern one. (Krivonogov 2009, 1146)
By the end of 16th century, the Aral Sea became fully filled. In ‘Kniga Bol’shomu Chertezhu’ issued in 1627, it was called “the Blue Sea” with a latitudinal length of 250 versts (1 verst is approximately 1.6 km). The Aral was depicted as a big lake on the maps by S.U. Remezov in 1697 and by A. Bekovich-Cherkasskii in 1715. Thus, the Aral Sea drop in the Middle Ages and its further filling were dated the 13th century to the end of 16th century. The duration of this phase is about 300 years. (Krivonogov 2009, 1149)
… the temporal limits for the regressions and transgressions remain inconclusive, and further studies are necessary. However, there are several dated levels in our discussed datasets which can be used to delimit these events (labeled by stars on Fig. 16). The outcrops at the Aral Sea shores clearly indicate two high stands at ca. 1.3–1.1 ka cal BP [650-850 AD] (Aklak) and 0.15–0 ka cal BP [1800-1950 AD] (Karaumbet). An onset of the last transgression is historically recorded: the turn of the Amu Darya River to the Aral Sea in AD 1573, the expansive Aral Sea in AD 1627, its high level in AD 1790–1960, and the modern drop since AD 1960. These facts allow us to recognize the following Aral Sea lake level changes during the last two millennia. There were two deep regressions followed by the modern artificial regression since ca. 0.05 ka cal BP, and two intermediate transgressions. The regressions occurred at ca. 2.1–1.3 [150 BC-650 AD] and 1.1–0.35 ka cal BP [850-1600 AD] according to the sedimentary and faunal data, and 2.1–1.45 and 1.0 (0.85)–0.45 ka cal BP [950 (1100)-1500 AD] according to the other data. All these regressions were very deep. The Aral Sea level dropped to ca. 29 m a.s.l. in late Middle Ages similar to present conditions, and levels may have reached 10 m a.s.l. from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Intermediate transgressions are established with an inferred Aral Sea lake level of ca. 52 m a.s.l. for the middle Middle Ages, and an elevation of ca. 53m for the sixteenth–twentieth centuries. (Krivonogov et al 2014, 298)
The Kerderi site cluster is situated on the former bottom of the Aral Sea east–northeast of Barsa-Kelmes Island, and consists of the mausoleum and mosque Kerderi-1, mausoleum Kerderi-2, and the Aral-Asar settlement…. Their elevations of ca. 34 m a.s.l. point to a deep regression similar to the modern one.
…
the investigators describe a rather developed industrial and agricultural community. The findings from the Aral-Asar, which probably appeared as a settlement on the Great Silk Road, indicate extensive livestock, plant agriculture, and trade.
...
Various authors offer slightly different interpretations for the archeological age of these sites. The Kerderi-1 mausoleum–mosque is dated to the twelfth–fourteenth centuries AD by Smagulov (2002), to the fourteenth–sixteenth or fourteenth–early fifteenth centuries AD by Boroffka et al. (2005a, 2006), and to the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries AD by Boomer et al. (2009). The Kerderi-2 mausoleum has been assigned an age of late thirteenth–middle fourteenth (Catalogue of monuments of the Kazakhstan Republic history, 2007) or fourteenth–fifteenth centuries AD (Sorokin and Fofonov, 2009). The Aral-Asar settlement is dated by coins to the mid-fourteenth century AD (Catalogue of monuments of the Kazakhstan Republic history, 2007). All these dates constrain the Medieval ‘Kerderi’ regression to ca. 0.8–0.4 ka cal BP [1150-1550 AD]. Krivonogov et al 2014, 290, 292)
Many scientists believe that this event [the destructions of the Mongol invasion] was a major contribution to the Medieval recession of the Aral Sea. However, our 14C dating of the Kerderi cluster suggests an earlier onset for the regression, at ca. 1 ka cal BP. (Krivonogov et al 2014, 292)
Maps and graphs from various sources:
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Boomer et al 2000, 1265 fig. 6 | Yagodin 2005, 319 | Boroffka et al 2006, 732 fig. 5 | Boroffka et al 2006, 729 fig. 4 | Sorrel 2006, 92 | Reinhardt et al 2008 | Boomer et al 2009, 87 | Krivonogov 2009, 1148 | Boroffka 2010, 298 | Krivonogov et al 2014, 297-298 | Sala 2019, 103 |
 |  |  |
| Toonen et al 2020, 32987 | Krivonogov et al 2014, 294 | Krivonogov et al 2014, 285 |
Upstream Syr Darya location
 |  |
| proposal | With various places mentioned in Andrianov (2016).
Note that not all of these are medieval and some of the locations are guesstimates by me. |
Location | Province | Area | Climate | Vegetation | Topography | Culture | Religion | Raw material | Population |
Sag-dara | Sighnaq | Transoxiana | Cold Arid | Sparse | Flatland | Uzbek | Sunni | Iron or Agriculture | 5k? |
Sag-dara is based along the course of the Janadarya river, with a bit stretching over to the Inkardarya river. There is archaeological evidence of significant irrigation networks branching from these rivers, and settlements located along the rivers or irrigation canals, from around the start of the game (Andrianov 2016, 232-235). The name (also romanized as Sāgh-dara and Sag-Dere) is mentioned in written sources as a site on the road from Khwarazm to Jand (Barthold 1968, 179; Andrianov 2016, 234).
Iron has been given as a potential material because Andrianov (2016, 233) says of a site in this location “a significant iron-related production was located here.” If having iron would make this location too important relative to the type of settlement it realistically hosted, wheat or sturdy grains would be good materials to represent the agriculture along the river and irrigation canals.
This connects to the corridor between Jand and Khwarazm (orange lines in the pic) that I recommended in
my previous Persia post. The ends of the corridor have shifted to accommodate the new locations, but it’s in basically the same place. I still strongly recommend this corridor – all the arguments in that post still hold after more research, and it is strongly similar to the places in the Sahara that got corridors, serving as a path through the desert regularly used by trade and armies.
Khwarazm locations
The orange points are archaeological sites dated to the Middle Ages from Boroffka et al (2005b), the gray points are the namesakes of their locations from Andrianov (2016). This is the option shown without the potential invented location described in the Aral Sea section above.
Location | Province | Area | Climate | Vegetation | Topography | Culture | Religion | Raw material | Population |
Dawqara | Kath | Khwarazm | Cold Arid | Desert | Wetlands | | Sunni | Livestock, horses or Wool | 4 digits? |
Narindjan | Kath | Khwarazm | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | | Sunni | | 10k? |
Yarbekir | Urgench | Khwarazm | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | | Sunni | Agriculture | 15k? |
Shahsenem | Khiva | Khwarazm | Cold Arid | Desert | Flatland | | Sunni | | 5-10k? |
Dawqara is based mainly on archaeological evidence (Boroffka et al 2005b); it is also on the east edge of the Kerder canal and may have been irrigated at some points; additionally the southern area is in a depression and forms marshes and lakes if the river delta is on the east side (as it was at some points through the game time but not at the start) (Yagodin 2002). I’ve given it a little corner of Shimbay just to balance the sizes a little, but I don’t think there’s a clear border there and you can kind of draw the internal borders how you want. The name is from the name of that depression, and a town in the area, though I don’t know the history of the name. This location is given a material of livestock, horses or wool because Yagodin (2002, 30, through Google Translate) says that when the area is wet it is very good territory for livestock breeding but not great for agriculture as practiced in the area, though this was probably not the case at the start of the game. Its described as becoming marshy or lakey whenever significant water was near, which is why I made it wetlands topography (Yagodin 2002). The corridor to Jand connects to this location.
Narindjan is based on evidence of irrigation canals in the area, including parts of the large-scale Gavkhore system (Andrianov 2016, 176-180) and on archaeological sites dated to the Middle Ages (Boroffka et al 2005b). It is named according to what Andrianov (2016, 176) calls a “Medieval city,” although these days it seems most associated with a specific mausoleum.
Yarbekir is based on the “Shamurat” irrigation canal, which ran for 75-80 km starting at the river and running southwest then west until reaching the Tuz-gyr plateau and the settlement and caravanserai of Yarbekir; this section of irrigation infrastructure was actually rebuilt in the Golden Horde era, so it should still have a decent population present (Andrianov 2016, 204-205).
Map of the medieval Shamurat canal system (Andrianov 2016. 293 fig. 42K)
Shahsenem is based on the “Chermen-yab” irrigation canal, which ran for 120 km from Zamakshar (in the northwest corner of the current Khiva location) to Shahsenem (Andrianov 2016, 201-204, 209). While this canal network supported a population of 20-30,000 before the Mongol invasion, it was hit heavily by the Mongols and, unlike the previous Shamurat, not extensively rebuilt, hence the much lower population. Shahsenem itself was a notable city before the Mongols, often mentioned as the southernmost site of Khwarazm before you entered the desert (Andrianov 2016, 201; Barthold 1968, 153)
Map of the medieval Chermen-yab canal system (Andrianov 2016. 293 fig. 42I)
Map of some medieval irrigation networks in southern Khwarazm (Tsvetsinskaya et al 2002, 372)
The latter three locations would all be well-served by an agricultural RGO, but if that’s not enough variety for the game some of them could be swapped around. Alternatively
Xojeli could be switched to stone to clear out an agricultural RGO, as a town at the west end of the location (Barategin) was known for limestone (Yagodin 2002, 42), though the only mentions in sources are pre-Mongol.
Khwarazm Province rework
As I’ve added several locations in Khwarazm, two provinces no longer feels like enough. This adds a new
Urgench province, named, as the existing two are, after the major city it contains.
Province | Locations |
Kath | Kath
Shimbay
Narindjan
Dawqara
Qonirat |
Urgench | Urgench
Vezir
Xojeli
Pulzhai
Yarbekir |
Khiva | Khiva
Nyzvar
Kyat Kala
Hazarasp
Darganata
Shahsenem |
Khwarazm population distribution
A good chunk of Khwarazm is unseen on any population map so some of this feedback is given without knowing the current state.
Urgench should be the most populated and most developed location; it had this status before the Mongols, recovered best after the Mongols, and maintained this status until at least the late 14th century when Timur’s second capture and a shift of the river away from the city dealt it a double blow. Also sizable should be
Xojeli, which contained the notable town of Mizdakhan and plenty of agriculture and fishing along the river.
Khiva is too big (comparatively, at least) – it’s notable enough to mention in the sources alongside the other towns on the way down the Amu Darya, but no indication is ever given that it was noticeably larger than any of them, and certainly not bigger than Urgench. Its time in the sun came later.
Minor changes, renames, and dynamic names
Jand should have an agricultural material; either wheat (to represent wheat) or sturdy grains (to represent barley, which was grown in some locations in the region as it apparently resisted salinity better). It was located on a river (Janadarya) and surrounded by irrigation canals (Andrianov 2016, 235).
Shimbay should probably not have an RGO of fish, but one of the animal-herding materials:
Archaeological data indicate that at the beginning of the 13th century there were no large or even small permanent settlements in the eastern part of the Aral Sea delta. The exception is the Khorezm fortress of Bagdat, built in the 9th-11th centuries and continuing to exist until the beginning of the 13th century and representing, like Dary-Kala, a stronghold of the Khorezmshahs on the cattle-breeding periphery. Nevertheless, according to the source, ‘They have many villages in the region.’ The presence of huge burial grounds with burials of this period on Tokkala, Krantau and Porlytau indicates a large population. The phrase from the source ‘…they have herds and animals…’ may mean that this population was a pastoralist, living in numerous separate groups in portable dwellings or in short-term frame-type buildings. (Amirov et al 2008, 143, through Google Translate)
The center of fishing in the area prior to the Mongols was in the west where the main course of the river was (Yagodin 2002). This may well have been interrupted by the change in the river after the Mongol invasion, but the river did not return to the east but instead flowed more directly west into Sarykamysh lake.
Two options for the name of
Yangikent:
As the town of Yangikent/Jankent/Dzhankent seems to have been essentially abandoned before the start of the game (Härke and Arzhantseva 2021; Krivonogov 2014; but compare Permanent Delegation of Kazakhstan to UNESCO 2021 which says it was occupied to the 18th century), you could rename it to Myntobe (see “Myntobe,” n.d.), which is very close to Yangikent and from the correct period, but is much more poorly sourced.
You could keep the better-sourced name of Yangikent, and give dynamic names (Barthold 1968, 178):
Sources
If there’s a link it’s to an open-access source.
Amirov, Shamil, Aysulu Iskanderova, G. Khodjaniyazov, V. N. Yagodin, and Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento. 2008.
Комплекс археологических объектов на возвышенности Крантау [Complex of Archaeological Sites on the Krantau Highland]. Археология Приаралья 7. Tashkent: ФАН.
Andrianov, Boris V. 2016.
Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area: The History, Origin, and Development of Irrigated Agriculture. Edited by Simone Mantellini. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Barthold, V. V. 1902.
Сведения Об Аральском Море и Низовьях Амударьи с Древнейших Времен До XVII Века [Information about the Aral Sea and the lower reaches of the Amudarya from ancient times to the XVII century]. Tashkent: тип. Штаба Туркест. воен. округа. The 1910 German translation is available at
https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:46794930.
Barthold, V. V. 1968.
Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. Edited by Clifford Edmund Bosworth. 3rd ed. New Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. The 2nd edition is available at
https://archive.org/details/Barthold1928Turkestan.
Boomer, Ian, Nikolai Aladin, Igor Plotnikov, and Robin Whatley. 2000. “The Palaeolimnology of the Aral Sea: A Review.”
Quaternary Science Reviews 19 (13): 1259–78.
Boomer, I., B. Wünnemann, A.W. Mackay, P. Austin, P. Sorrel, C. Reinhardt, D. Keyser, F. Guichard, and M. Fontugne. 2009. “Advances in Understanding the Late Holocene History of the Aral Sea Region.”
Quaternary International 194 (1–2): 79–90.
Boroffka, N. G. O, K. M. Bajpakov, G. A. Achatov, A. Erzanova, D. A. Lobas, and T. V. Savel’Eva. 2003. “Prospektionen am nördlichen Aral-See, Kazachstan.”
Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 35:1–82.
Boroffka, N. G. O., H. Obernhänsli, G. A. Achatov, N. V. Aladin, K. M. Baipakov, A. Erzhanova, A. Hörnig, et al. 2005a. “Human Settlements on the Northern Shores of Lake Aral and Water Level Changes.”
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 10 (1): 71–85.
Boroffka, N. G. O., P. Sorrel, K. Alimov, S. Baratov, K. Rakhimov, N. Saparov, T. Shirinov, C. Reinhardt, and B. Wünnemann. 2005b. “Prospektionen am südlichen Aralsee, Uzbekistan.”
Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 37:247–306.
Boroffka, Nikolaus, Hedi Oberhänsli, Philippe Sorrel, Francois Demory, Christian Reinhardt, Bernd Wünnemann, Kamildzhan Alimov, et al. 2006. “Archaeology and Climate: Settlement and Lake‐level Changes at the Aral Sea.”
Geoarchaeology 21 (7): 721–34.
Boroffka, Nikolaus G. O. 2010. “Archaeology and Its Relevance to Climate and Water Level Changes: A Review.” In
The Aral Sea Environment, edited by Andrey G. Kostianoy and Aleksey N. Kosarev, 7:283–303. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Härke, Heinrich, Irina A. Arzhantseva, and Azilkhan Tazhekeev. 2020. “The Early Medieval Town of Dzhankent (Kazahkstan): From Initial Hypothesis to New Model.”
The European Archaeologist, no. 66, 27–34.
https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA/Publicati...ublications/Tea_66_content/Research_news.aspx.
Härke, Heinrich, and Irina Arzhantseva. 2021. “Interfaces and Crossroads, Contexts and Communications: Early Medieval Towns in the Syr-Darya Delta (Kazakhstan).”
Journal of Urban Archaeology 3:51–63.
https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JUA.5.123675.
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GIS file
Edit 10/21: I attached a geopackage file with the changes here (and some other changes for the wider region that I posted in other threads, since I did all my work in the same set of layers. It's kind of messy in places.
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