Murghab River, Turkmenistan via remote sensing
August brought CAAL work experience student Rory Calvin. Rory was with us for a week looking at satellite imagery in southern Turkmenistan. He identified 530 potential sites: some nestled in the small valleys between desert dunes, some along the narrow fertile zone of the lower Murghab River, where a few sites appear to be under threat from expanding agriculture/irrigation. There also appear to be numerous relatively recent small herding sites, some still in use, which proliferate on the other side of the Afghan border. Great work Rory!
by Tim WILLIAMS
Survey area in southern Turkmenistan. 10 km squares (in red) with potential sites (green).
Sites along an ancient watercourse, with new agriculture spreading westward from the current river channel (right of image).
Clusters of herding enclosures/settlements on the Turkmen/Afghan border.