[octokatt]

> Metallurgy may be a key part of how the city could sustain itself at such a high altitude. The mountains are rich in iron ore and have dense juniper forests, which could be burned to fuel the smelting process. The researchers have also uncovered coins from across modern-day Uzbekistan, Maksudov says, suggesting the city may have been a hub for trade. It doesn’t appear to have been strictly a mining settlement, either—at Tashbulak, a cemetery contains the remains of women, elderly people and infants.

>

> “We have realized that this was a large urban center, which was integrated into the Silk Road network and dragged the Silk Road caravans toward mountains ... because they had their own products to offer,” Maksudov says.

Checking, did anyone else get to this part of the article and think "Yes, this shall be my anthropological model for dwarves in my D&D game"?

[detourdog]

No, but my thought that this represents and industrial center and it would be great to trace the iron to artifacts around the world.

I also thought that the medieval site could be built on an earlier development. I wonder how many years of production creates such a city. The city may have evolved slowly or was established all at once with the proximity to Juniper trees to iron ore.

Finally I wonder at human powered rates of deforestation how long the juniper trees could last or maybe they were cultivated.

They could stretch back to middle-earth.

[throwaway19972]

> They could stretch back to middle-earth.

Is this an odd translation of 中国 or am I missing something?

Edit: took me way too long to realize this was referencing lord of the rings.

[8bitsrule]

It's possible that most of their production stayed in the Stans region (given all the marauding hordes afoot at the time). So maybe they were a mountainous sink for the trades, not so much a source. (Until they themselves were over-run?)