TASHKENT, August 11. /Dunyo IA/. Scientists have discovered evidence of silk production dating back approximately four thousand years in the Surkhandarya Region, reports Dunyo IA correspondent.

According to the “Narodnoye Slovo” newspaper, the study of findings unearthed at the Sapallitepa ancient agricultural settlement could alter the understanding of the expansion of silk production technology across Central Asia.

According to Uzbekistan’s “Narodnoye Slovo” newspaper, published in Tashkent, new findings unearthed at the ancient agricultural settlement of Sapallitepa are shedding new light on the spread of silk-production technology across Central Asia.

Specialists from the Institute of Anthropology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, together with an international research team, studied three discovered fragments of ancient cocoons. Micromorphological and proteomic analyses confirmed that they belonged to the domesticated silkworm.

“Radiocarbon dating has traced the findings back to 1940–1765 BC. In the same cultural layer, archaeologists identified remnants of the mulberry tree, whose leaves serve as the primary food for the silkworm”, newspaper writes. Furthermore, the discovery of cocoons and mulberry remnants in the single location indicates that the inhabitants of the region could have possessed silk production technology as early as the Bronze Age.

Discovery does not alter the widely accepted date of the formation of the Great Silk Road in the 2^nd century BC, yet it demonstrates that the exchange of silk and relevant knowledge commenced nearly two thousand years before the emergence of this trade system, the newspaper states. According to its data, the research findings have been published in the prestigious journal “Science Advances”.