Archaeology in Soviet Central Asia (Innerasien, Vol 3, No 1)

Rating:
Summary: A Classic Work on the Subject
Review: Frumkin's compilation provides a comprehensive survey beginning from the stone age and onward in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, as known through 1970. Perhaps its greatest value is its extensive bibliography, its greatest flaw that it is too short. It does not go into the detail one might have liked on many subjects -- in most cases, the reader will need to go to the now obscure and difficult to locate references for details. Still, it's a landmark of painstaking research and scholarship that is indispensable to those interested in the subject. After 30 years, one would hope that someone would again synthesize old and new findings from Central Asia into a single work of this kind. Until then, this volume is it!

Rating:
Summary: A Classic Work on the Subject
Review: Frumkin's compilation provides a comprehensive survey beginning from the stone age and onward in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, as known through 1970. Perhaps its greatest value is its extensive bibliography, its greatest flaw that it is too short. It does not go into the detail one might have liked on many subjects -- in most cases, the reader will need to go to the now obscure and difficult to locate references for details. Still, it's a landmark of painstaking research and scholarship that is indispensable to those interested in the subject. After 30 years, one would hope that someone would again synthesize old and new findings from Central Asia into a single work of this kind. Until then, this volume is it!