A ‘Shoehorn’ at Altyn Depe: A Biased Application of the Urban Revolution Model of Vere Gordon Childe (1950)

This paper reconsiders the archaeological picture and the involved historical narratives proposed by important seasons of excavations at the third-millennium bc site of Altyn Depe (Turkmenistan) by the former Soviet acad- emy. Thanks to these intensive efforts the site is and will remain crucial for the reconstruction of the evolution of social complexity in southern Central Asia and the neighbouring civilizations; however, we question the validity of some assumptions and interpretations, which appear somehow biased by an aprioristic desire to validate the influential par- adigms on early urbanism of V. G. Childe, even at the expense of a realistic assessment of the archaeo- logical evidence. Finally, the paper proposes some new hypotheses which might be tested by future fieldwork.