In 1948, under a cover of the corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, an august academician M.N. Tikhomirov, S.P. Tolstov published a preliminary report on the results of the 4-years long Horezmian Archeological Expedition, with a historical background and his analysis of the historical context. The print of the book was a meager 3,000 copies, few copies were immediately snatched by a narrow circle of the expedition members, their friends, and close associates, and the rest dissipated to make the publication an instant antique. It continued a stellar carrier that propelled S.P. Tolstov within the young academic milieu, brought him the highest accolades of the time, and afforded him rewards and memory that eluded his no less accomplished colleagues. In the 1930s, the euphoria of the 1917 revolution has not quenched yet, the replacement of the "old" school with the new recruits was steaming ahead, and the exuberance of yesterday's commoners called for great feats was still on the rise. In the 1940s, a dust of reality has sat in, the Marxist orthodox rails that used to point to the future turned into rigid rails of the present, the Academy recast in the 1930s turned it from a House of Science into a Scientific Department of the state, and an atmosphere of inescapable scholastic rat race permeated once idealistic academic ether. However brilliant the work was, it had to support the reigning dictum, and unwittingly in the process stirred aspects that would not be attended otherwise. In parting with the previous historical attention to the ruling elite at the expense of the rest of the population, which used to create a comics-type version of history, the Marxist orthodoxy needed to turn their eyes away from the anecdotes of royal epos and battles to the masses and their production system. In turn, that arose a need to explore the extent of the irrigation system and the role of pastoral nomads in the history of the peoples. Drawn from the minutiae of the archeological discoveries, and devoid of the insights of the biological studies that tie real people to the history, the work nevertheless reshapes history as a history of humans, of peoples, their daily life, their traditions, and their culture. Never mind that some orthodox overshoots make the slaveless nomadic society a slave-holding contraption, that some readings of the facts are shaped to fit a predestined formula; the underlying evidence stands on its own, open for all to see. With the dutiful citations from the greatest known archeologists K. Marx and F.Engels, and mentioning Iran and Iranians whether they belong or not, the publication trespassed the bounds instituted by the 9th August, 1944, Declaration of the VKP(b) Central Committee against “ancientisation” and “glorification” of the Türkic history. For decades, the book was accessible only via special access privileges or stowed away copies. But it not only survived, but became popular among a narrow circle of the specialists, and in the next century, with the help of the Internet, it gained a wide recognition.

The insights of the archeologists of the 1930s were confirmed and detailed by the later studies that noted that by the beginning of the 2nd mill. BC aridification drove the local Uraloid population of hunter-gatherer fishermen away to the north, and after a millennium of depopulation, the area was settled again by the pastoral Kurgan Timber Grave migrants coming from the northeast and from the northwest, and a sedentary farmers coming from the south. In the 1st mill. BC the diverse population symbiotised into dynamic equilibrium, the extent of which in the greater Khorasan area to the south still remains archeologically unexplored, but the known flow of events points to the same diverse and symbiotic society as further north in the Horezm area explored by the Horezmian Archeological Expedition of the 1930s. The first historical records of the Greek sources describe stable societies with entrenched coherency.

Posting clarifications and comments are (in blue italics) or in blue boxes. Page numbers are shown at the end of the page in blue. Square brackets [] indicate actual location of page break. The posting added or duplicated Chinese transcriptions, modern names, geographical coordinates, terminological clarifications, and auxiliary illustrations to facilitate concise references.

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FROM THE AUTHOR

Working in the 1931-1937 on the early history of Central Asia and other countries of the Near and Middle East, the author of this work was forced to recognise that the existing treatment in the literature of pre-Islamic period socio-economic system as full feudal system is not true and in essence is groundless. On the contrary, the written sources with certainty signaled a presence of many features inherent to the slave system. In a number of his papers, the author has tried to substantiate that position (for the Arabs in 1932, for the nomadic peoples of the Middlle and Central Asia in 1934, the general theoretical, comparative-ethnographic terms in 1935, and finally for the Middlle Asia settled peoples in 1935 - 1938's.) ¹.

In this work, of a huge methodological assistance to the author rendered the works of Academician V.V. Struve, who used extensive material to demonstrated a fallacy of the feudal concept in the ancient oriental history.

However, defending in numerous discussions ² his view, the author could not miss the weak points of his arguments, which were inevitable consequences of sources' scarcity, and their fragmentation that allowed a wide range of interpretations. It became clear to him that only a quest for the new, hidden in the ground historical facts, that only well organized and determined archaeological work can set the debatable problems in the ancient history of Middle Asia onto a firm, disallowing misinterpretations, base. Prior to that, the author was able to use only very fragmented, although very interesting material, largely originated from random assamblages of the pre-revolutionary (1917) collectors, from very methodologically imperfect excavations of the only pre-Islamic monument (not counting Anau) studied before the revolution, the Afrasiaba ³, and also very few materials of the first Soviet expeditions, of which most notable were the Museum of Asian cultures expedition by B.P. Denike in Termez ⁴, M.V. Voevodsky, M.P. Gryaznov ⁵ and A.I. Terenojkin ⁶ on Usun burials in Jeti-su, the Termez expedition of M.E. Masson connected with finding in 1933 a sculpted piece of cornice of the early our era in the Ayrtam near Termez ⁷, and excavations of the A.A. Freiman  expeditionon at Mount Mug at the upper [] Zeravshan, which enriched the science by a brilliant complex of the Sogdian documents from the early 8th c. BC. ⁸ Only in the process of the work, the author was able to learn about great results of the M.E. Masson Termez expedition in 1936 - 1938.
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The object of their field research, the author has chosen Khorezm. This choice was not accidental. The author is associated to work with Khorezm since 1929, when he first came here as a party of historical and ethnographic expedition RANION in Kunya Urgench and Hodzheylinsky areas. This expedition has determined the entire direction of the subsequent work of the author, the focus of which, wherever it may distract a variety of attendant jobs were history, ethnography and archeology of this unique region of Middle Asia, "Middle Asian Egypt", one of the oldest cultural areas of the country (Ныне Казахстан, Узбекистан, и Туркменистан). Field studies, begun in 1929, was continued by him as head of the Middle Asian historical and ethnographic expedition of the Museum of the USSR, to the Plan which, in 1932 and 1934. author visited Khiva, and Turtkul Chimbay areas. All of this work, the author comes to the conclusion of an exclusive role in the system of Khorezm historical and cultural ties between Middle Asia and the Eurasian North, as dictated by the need to deepen these archaeological research. As on the territory of Khorezm crossed both lines of research interests of the author, it was determined the choice of Khorezm as a base to deploy broadly defined archaeological work.

This work is the result of four years of field research of the Khorezm Archaeological Expedition of the Moscow branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Material Culture led by the author, with the objectives are defined above.

This book is not an attempt for systematic publication of plentiful and varied materials obtained by the expedition in the four years of work. A study of these materials by the author and his co-workers is continuing, and it would take not a few years before they would be fully introduced into scientific circulation (The WWII radically destroyed the research plans, and pushed out some papers for decades, and some materials still were not processed).

However, it is time now to take stock of the work done, summarize most significant of those historical and historical-cultural conclusions that the material allows to make now. It is also necessary to ensure that the most important results of our work are accessible to a wide circle of Soviet historians and have done their work in solving the above-mentioned disagreements, and for us to study the obtained material more systematically and purposefully. The subject of this book is an attempt of such recapitulation of the findings that our materials entitle in the major research lines (history of irrigation, types of housing and settlements, fortifications, weaponry, numismatics, numismatic epigraphy, art).

It should be noted that the author and his Khorezm expedition team were not alone in their efforts to locate new documents on the history of pre-Islamic Middle Asia. Almost simultaneously, widely begins work  in many other areas. Should be noted the M.E. Masson's large Termez complex expedition (1936 - 1938) ⁹ that  continued the work of the Termez expedition of the Museum of Oriental Cultures 1926 - 1927, the long-lasting work by G.V. Grigoriev studying Tashkent forts that begun still in 1934, ¹⁰, and the brilliant results of a study by the same author of the ancient Tali-Barzu settlement near Samarkand ¹¹, M.E. Masson's expedition along the route of the Great Fergana Canal (1939) that produced very valuable materials on the culture of the ancient Da-Yuan ¹², A.N. Bernshtam major expedition [ ] to Kyrgyzstan and South-East Kazakhstan (1933 - 1946) ¹³, the V.A. Shishkin's work on the western outskirts of the Bukhara oasis in 1937 ¹⁴, and finally, the work of A.I. Terenojkin at Ak-Tepe near Tashkent ¹⁵ and at the Tashkent canal named after Molotov ¹⁶ (Now the canal not named after Molotov).
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These works enabled us to draw on a diverse comparative material and largely reinforce and clarify our deductions and conclusions. The socio-economic deductions, resulting in the analysis of their material by many of these authors, often echo our deductions, formulated in the works of 1938 - 1941 and expounded below. Thus, in conclusion of his work, M.E. Masson writes in the Proceedings of TАКЕ (Termez Archeological Complex Expedition, 1936-1938): "At the time when the archaeological research оn Middle Asia were in а most embryonic stage, W.W. Bartold, by virtue of that operating mostly by written sources, very limited prior to the time of the Arab conquest, stated that there he had not seen a significant difference in the life in the Turkestan between the 4th c. BC and 7th c. AD. And since at the time of the Arab conquest in the Mawarannahr can be seen a number of features typical for feudal relations, unwittingly was created a tendency to attribute them in the Middle Asia back for thousands of years. With that kind of situation the known now archaeological data, derived from studies of material culture that reflect the contemporary relations in production process, would perhaps fall into a flagrant conflict". ¹⁷

And below the author, analyzing the ascertained from the archaeological evidence cultural crisis of the 5th - 6th cc., asks: "Does it fall on the brim of a new formation, whem the decomposition proces of the prior formation was occuring with greater intensity, due to a corresponding push from the outside?" ¹⁸

A.N. Bernshtam comes to even stronger language, defining the production mode of the archaeologically studied Sogdian colonies in Jetri-su as as slave society. ¹⁹

That the present book is based on the new, and only partially and preliminary published material makes particularly difficult a task of its structure. In an effort to present a consistent account on the cultural history of Khorezm as it comes across from the archaeological monuments, the author at the same time had to sdubstantiate the chronological dating based on a complex of attributes related to different cultural fields, and making dating convincing only in a context as a whole. The mutual intersection of the numismatic, ceramic, historico-architectural and other studies extremely hindered a consistent thematic and chronological systematization of the material. Therefore, mindful of Marx's (i.e., Karl Marx) prescription,the author had to abndon subordination of the presentation method in favor of the study methodology. Having sorted out the material thematically and chronologically, to facilitate orientation at the beginning is presented a brief chronological classification of the monuments that introduses a reader into systematization and terminology adopted by the author. A detailed substantiation for each category of the classification is found in the relevant sections of the following chapters.

However, a number of the author's conclusions can not be justified solely on the Khorezmian material. Above all this applies to many facts of social and economic system and social movements in the ancient Khorezm, signaled by the archaeological data, but conceptualized only in the light of the Middle Asian documentary material at our disposal. Therefore, not to load main text with material external to Khorezm, we included in this book as special excursions the essay on the analysis of political developments in the Middle Asia in the 2nd - 1st cc. BC that allows to illuminate the role of Kangar-Khorezm in that era, and our work of 1938 "Abru Tyranny" (in somewhat modified form) that adds to our archaeological material the material of all known written sources in the adjacent areas of the Middle Asia, primarily in Sogdiana, and thus substantiates from a new side our final conclusions, and finally, a small study on the relicts of the traditions from the primitive community in the Middle Asia from the ancient and medieval periods, based on introduction to the coverage of archaeological data and ancient texts of a wide range of comparative ethnographic material.

Writing the main text of the book, in a number of cases the author also used the text of his previously published articles in the VDI (Bulletin of Ancient History), 1938, No 4; VDI, 1939 No 2 and 3; VDI, 1941, No 1, however, with radical editing and emendations. Completely re-written are the Chapters I and II, the first and fourth sections of Chapter III, the second and third sections of Chapter IV and the whole Chapter V, Excursions I and III.

In conclusion, the author considers it a pleasant duty to express a profound gratitude above all to the harmonious collective of the colliques at the expedition, without dedicated work of which creation of this book would be impossible, first of all to the archaeologists Ya.G. Gulyamov and A.I. Terenojkin, and the artist N.P. Tolstov, the technician of IIMK V.V. Shtylko, who provoded exceptionally great help in organizing laboratory work on the collections, and all those who in the course of eight-years work on the material assist him with guidance, advice, and criticism, the Academician V.V. Struve, Academician I.A. Orbeli, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A.A. Freiman, S.E. Malov, K.B. Trever, A.Yu. Yakubovsky, professors M.E. Masson, V.D. Blavatsky, the late A.N. Zograf and B.P. Denike, and many others.
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