After the conquest of Samarkand by Russian forces in 1868, a sacred relic, the reputed Quran of Uthman, was removed from the Khoja Ahrar madrassa and taken to the Imperial Library in St Petersburg. Following the October 1917 revolution, successive Muslim organizations successfully petitioned for the Quran’s ‘return’, representing a remarkably early case of formerly colonized peoples reclaiming cultural property taken under imperial duress on the principle of decolonization. The highly politicized and publicized debates contesting this Quran’s rightful ownership and the history of its multiple ‘repatriations’—from Petrograd to Ufa to Turkestan and from mosque to museum to anti-religious exhibition—illustrate the competing claims to spiritual, ethno-national, scholarly, and ideological authority leveraged by various actors in the first decade of Soviet power, amidst visions of transnational anti-imperial revolution in the ‘East’. As Soviet rule solidified in 1926–27, the Quran was concealed from view domestically while increasingly being deployed in diplomacy abroad.

In 1877, Russian authorities in Turkestan arrested an Ottoman mullah who was reportedly spreading anti-tsarist propaganda in the Kazakh steppe. Upon closer inspection, the man turned out to be neither an Ottoman subject nor a Muslim religious leader. This article follows the travels of Hajji Ahmed, a young merchant from Dagestan who was at different times accused of being a Russian spy and an Ottoman spy. His three petitions and tsarist investigative reports reveal that he had traded throughout the Khanate of Khoqand, the Emirate of Bukhara, and tsarist Turkestan in the 1870s. This microhistory of a Muslim peddler offers a glimpse into tsarist anxieties about Muslim mobility and local fears of Russian imperialism in Central Asia. It demonstrates that Russia’s colonial expansion provided new opportunities for tsarist Muslim subjects but also destabilized Central Asian societies and institutions, making the conditions of travel perilous. Tsarist paranoia about Ottoman emissaries, Tatar missionaries, and prospects of an anticolonial uprising led to Russia’s restrictions on transregional Muslim mobility.

Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in 2014, a view that interprets Russian-Ukrainian relations as colonialism has gained ground in historical scholarship. However, based on an analysis of the terms “colonization” and “colonialism” and a comparison between Ukrainian territories and the Governorate-General of Turkestan in late imperial Russia, this article argues for a more cautious use of the term “colonialism” in relation to Ukraine. It shows that contemporaries rarely viewed tsarist rule in Ukraine through the prism of colonialism, while in the case of Central Asia this perspective was pervasive. Moreover, tsarist policy toward Central Asia and its predominantly Muslim population was much more in line with colonial practices than it was in the case of Ukraine. While colonial rule is generally based on the institutionalization of difference, the opposite was the case in Ukraine: Ukraine was appropriated as part of the Russian nation. Therefore, this article argues that Russia’s claims on Ukraine, which deny Ukraine’s right to national self-determination and statehood, are not an indication of colonial subjugation, but rather of nationalist usurpation.

The Darband Wall in southern Uzbekistan marks an important political border in the Classical world, yet the dating of its construction is largely relative and contested. Presenting 10 new radiocarbon dates from the wall, the authors argue that construction began in the early or middle third century BC, likely under Seleucid or early Greco-Bactrian rule, while later reconstruction efforts coincide with Kushan expansion around the first and second centuries AD. Early Hellenistic-style fortifications reveal a defensive, and possibly an orientational, shift during Kushan rule that underscores both the strategic significance of the wall and the need for more extensive investigation.

The emergence, on the Loess Plateau of Central China, of settlements enclosed by circular ditches has engendered lively debate about the function of these (often extensive) ditch systems. Here, the authors report on a suite of new dates and sedimentological analyses from the late Yangshao (5300–4800 BP) triple-ditch system at the Shuanghuaishu site, Henan Province. Exploitation of natural topographic variations, and evidence for ditch maintenance and varied water flows, suggests a key function in hydrological management, while temporal overlap in the use of these three ditches reveals the large scale of this endeavour to adapt to the pressures of the natural environment.

Mandibular and dental material of hyaenids from the Central Asian localities of Zasukhino-3 (Russia) and Nalaikha (Mongolia), dating to the late Early Pleistocene (0.9–0.78 Ma) was identified as giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris based on morphological and size similarities. Comparative analysis of Eurasian P. brevirostris from different stratigraphic levels (from 2.1 to 0.5 Ma) revealed two evolutionary stages of the lower cheek teeth of the giant hyenas. The stages are determined as morphotypes A and B, directed toward the differentiation of the function of premolar and enhancing the cutting function of m1. We traced the microprocesses that occurred during the transition from the primitive structure of the m1 talonid to its more advanced state. This event occurred during the transition from the late Villafranchian to the Epivillafranchian (ca. 1.1–0.9 Ma). The stabilized advanced morphotype B was found in samples from Zasukhino-3, Nalaikha, and other close-in-age localities such as Lakhuti-2. The new finds from Asian Russia and Mongolia suggest that P. brevirostris from these regions represent a single giant hyena population occupying the northernmost part of their Asian range.

This essay examines how blackness is lived, perceived, and negotiated in (post)socialist Kazakhstan by placing the experiences of two “dual heritage” women—Aminata Uėdrаogo, a contemporary media personality, and Yelena Khanga, a Soviet and Russian-era journalist—in conversation. Prompted by a visit with Uėdrаogo in Almaty, I use autoethnographic and Black feminist methods to explore how blackness functions as both a limit and a possibility within shifting frameworks of race, ethnicity, and national belonging. While scholarship on intermarriage and ethnic mixing in Soviet Central Asia exists, contemporary experiences of people of African descent—particularly women—remain largely absent.1 Through their narratives and embodied experiences, I argue that blackness in Central Asia complicates the presumed rupture between socialist and post-socialist periods and unsettles dominant Eurocentric paradigms of race. This analysis calls for further inquiry into African diasporic presence and theorizations of blackness in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian contexts.

In 2022–2023, fragments of figurative wall paintings were discovered in the Royal Palace at Sanjar-Shah, a Sogdian site near Panjikent in Tajikistan. The paintings depict a procession of priests approaching a large fire altar—this offers a rare insight into religious imagery and a representation of fire worship in Sogdian murals.

Multidisciplinary research is deepening our understanding of high-altitude pastoralism on the Tibetan Plateau, but such studies also highlight a strong riverine bias in the location of excavated sites. In a move to address this skewing of the dataset, the authors propose the exploration of modern highland corrals with shovel testing and test excavations as a labour-efficient survey method, streamlined through the identification of potential sites from satellite imagery. Three prehistoric sites were successfully located using this method, the earliest dating to the first millennium BC, encouraging the reconsideration of current survey strategies in Tibet and other mountainous regions.

Oasis communities across Central Asia were key to the emergence and maintenance of the ancient Silk Roads that spanned Eurasia from the late second century BC, yet our understanding of early interaction networks in this region is limited. Multi-isotopic analysis of human teeth from the Zaghunluq Cemetery, southern Xinjiang (sixth century BC to first century AD) now suggests that oasis communities established intricate exchange networks, forming strong ties with other nearby oases and mountain pastoralists and weak ties, facilitated through in migration, with more distant regions. These diverse connections, the authors argue, made possible cultural exchange across the challenging geography of eastern Central Asia.

The government of Kyrgyzstan has embarked on an ambitious hydropower development programme on the transboundary Syr Darya River, which has provoked strong opposition from downstream Uzbekistan. The programme is driven by the alignment of actual energy concerns with interests of the national hydraulic elites and the global politics of project finance, which provides a logic for dams that may exacerbate existing geopolitical tensions across the region.

Despite being almost 4000m above sea level, cereal crops have been grown in the Ngari Prefecture on the Tibetan Plateau for thousands of years. Where and when domestic crop species adapted to high-altitude growing conditions is a matter of ongoing debate. Here, the authors present a new radiocarbon date from the Gepa serul cemetery, providing the earliest evidence of naked six-rowed barley in Tibet (c. 3500 BP). Evaluating the available evidence for barley cultivation and interregional connections in central Asia at this time, two hypotheses are considered—a generational advance with farmers migrating up river valleys or rapid, long-distance trade through mountain corridors.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) represents a diverse region facing complex healthcare challenges, including resource constraints, fragmented systems, and limited access to evidence-based decision-making tools. Health technology assessment (HTA) offers a critical framework for addressing these issues by informing efficient allocation of healthcare resources. In April 2024, HTA International (HTAi) convened a policy dialogue in Astana, Kazakhstan, bringing together stakeholders from 12 EECA countries and international experts to discuss HTA advancement in the region. The dialogue highlighted systemic barriers, including political instability, capacity shortages, and fragmented data sources while exploring successful HTA implementation models in some countries. Participants emphasized the importance of political commitment, institutional frameworks, and capacity building, alongside fostering stakeholder collaboration. International organizations such as HTAi and WHO were recognized as vital enablers for technical support and knowledge sharing. Key outcomes included actionable recommendations: strengthening political advocacy, developing legal and institutional frameworks, investing in workforce development, and enhancing multistakeholder engagement. The dialogue underscored HTAi’s role in catalyzing regional collaboration, providing platforms for discussion, and offering resources for capacity building. Future initiatives will focus on addressing structural weaknesses, promoting transparency, and embedding HTA into national healthcare systems to ensure equitable and evidence-based decisions. The findings reinforce the potential of HTA to enhance healthcare policy and planning in EECA, fostering resilient systems that better meet population health needs despite ongoing challenges.

The Fedchenko Glacier in central Pamir is one of Asia’s longest glaciers and has been a focal point for scientific investigation spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. This study explores a time series of elevation changes from 1928 to 2021 using diverse data sources: historical maps, optical digital elevation models from various sensors (KH-9, SPOT5 and Pléiades), ICESat laser altimetry and GNSS surveys. The mean rate of elevation change along the glacier center line over this period of 93 years is $-0.46\ \mathrm{m\ yr}^{-1}$. The different sub-periods of elevation changes are investigated together with Fedchenko meteorological station data (1936–91) and ERA5 reanalysis (1950–2021). The most moderate thinning is observed during the earliest and coldest period (1928–58). The 1958–80 period is characterized by large thinning rates that can be partially explained by a dry anomaly and, locally, by a dynamic thinning related to a probable, but not directly observed, surge-like event. A wet anomaly in 1980–2010 potentially mitigated temperature-induced mass losses for this warm period, which is consistent with the observed moderate thinning. From 2010 to 2021, substantial thinning of $-0.31\,\mathrm{m\ yr}^{-1}$ was recorded in the accumulation area (>4800 m a.s.l.), in line with a broader trend of generalized mass losses in the Pamir region.