This finding may change how we think about the legendary Silk Road.
The trade routes were long thought to have connected lowland cities and were well-known for the flow of goods and ideas between the East and the West.
However, archaeologists have now discovered at least two highland cities that were situated around a crucial intersection of the trade routes using remote sensing technologies.
At least 120 hectares in size, Tugunbulak was one of the cities. It was located more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level, which is now considered to be an uninhabitable altitude.
According to archaeologist Farhod Maksudov, who was a member of the research team, this discovery is now altering the course of Central Asian history.
The group thinks that during the Middle Ages, when a strong Turkic dynasty ruled the region, Tugunbulak and the smaller city of Tashbulak were thriving communities from the eighth to the eleventh centuries.
Today, just 3% of people on Earth reside above this altitude. Among the few examples are Cusco, Peru, and Lhasa, Tibet.
Mr. Maksudov, director of Uzbekistan’s National Center of Archaeology, and Michael Frachetti, an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis, led the discovery, which was made possible by drones and a remote-sensing device called lidar, which uses reflected light to create three-dimensional mappings of the environment.
