Together with other peculiarities, the presence of seven large kilns testifies to the political-administrative importance of the tepe . Surrounding artefact concentrations represent rural villages, individual housing units and manured fields. In addition, traces of Andronovo camp-sites, characterized by the presence of Incised Coarse Ware (ICW), were recorded close to the main tepe . During the Achaemenid period, site 1529 together with its satellite settlements was an important and strategic political-administrative centre whose main function was the supervision of the desert border. The site also has the potential to shed light onto the relationship of nomadic and sedentary groups during the Bronze and Iron Ages.
In the same transect, specialised camp-sites were recorded interspersed betweensedentary agricultural communities, which indicate the beginning of interaction between nomads and farmers and an incipient process of sedentism (Cattani 2008a,2008b; Cattani et al . 2008). An impressive ICW site (1468), c . 0.64 ha in size, with the evidence of three sunken dwellings, stone pestles and millstones was recorded approximately 7 km to the east of Takhirbai 3. The complexity and remarkable extent of the site suggests it may have been of an important new scale for the Andronovo community, possibly even a ‘center’ for their interaction with the settled communityof Takhirbai. Elaborate incised pottery characterises this site (Cerasetti 1998: 67-70;Tosi and Cerasetti 2010: 94-95). Farther to the east, numerous sites with wheel-made Bronze Age wares were found surrounded by scatters of ICW pottery on the sands.
In one ofthe survey transects we found an impressive 3 ha Andronovo compound (Fig. 8). Thesite, located mainly on sands, is characterized by a pottery spread and eight distinctconcentrations. The central mound is separated from the other areas by sand dunes, which in some cases obscure continuous artefact distributions. The area with the highest concentration of sands yielded large quantities of hand-made pottery, mainly very large ICW fragments. 15 The presence of a small number of Late Bronze Age wheel-made sherds testifies to interaction with sedentary communities. Numerous cooking-ware fragments suggest the presence of a living area to the north-west of themain mound. A craft production area with evidence for kiln, kiln-slags, metal prills and numerous stone tools is located c . 40 m to the south-west. Numerous fragments ofwattle-and-daub building materials, typical for Andronovo camp-sites in the Murghab alluvial fan, were found scattered across the site. This site is the first example of a sedentary community with an Andronovo cultural identity.
As mentioned above, the progressive decrease in land suitable for agriculture presenteda simultaneous increase of grazing areas during the Bronze Age. One can imagine thatas a result, farmers leased their territories to cattle breeders in exchange for productssuch as milk and meat as well as textiles or pelts. Technology, including agriculturaltechniques, metalworking and possibly even architectural traditions seems to have been exchanged (Shishlina and Hiebert 1998: 222, 231
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