ABSTRACT

In the deltaic termination of the Zeravshan River (southeastern Uzbekistan) and the Balkh River (northern Afghanistan), changes in the river courses took place during the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. This chapter raises the question of the potential consequences of drought on surface runoffs and explores other phenomena such as floods or mass-movement slopes induced by earthquakes in the avulsion process that may have led to river course changes. The question of climate and of human occupation and its evolution in these deltaic floodplains is addressed at a micro-regional and a local scale. The mobility of the paleodrainage systems matches settlement displacement phases, showing their dependence on water resources as well as the population adaptation through the Holocene.