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The Yaz culture (named after the type site Yaz-Tappe, Yaz Tepe, or Yaz Depe, near Baýramaly, Turkmenistan) was an early Iron Age culture of Margiana, Bactria and Sogdia (–500 BC, or –330 BCBendezu Sarmiento, Julio, Philippe Marquis, Johanna Lhuillier, and Hervé Monchot, (2018). "A sepulchral pit from the Late Iron Age in Bactra: The site of Tepe Zargaran (Afghanistan)", in: Johanna Lhuillier and Nikolaus Boroffka (eds.), A Millennium of History, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin, p. 319: "...In southern Central Asia, the Iron Age saw the almost-complete disappearance of burial (Sine Sepulchro period covering the Yaz I-III sequence, ca. 1500–330 BCE)..."). It emerges at the top of late Bronze Age sites (BMAC), sometimes as mud-brick platforms and sizeable houses associated with irrigation systems. Ceramics were mostly hand-made, but there was increasing use of wheel-thrown ware. Bronze and iron arrowheads, also iron and carpet knives among other artifacts have been found.
With the farming citadels and absence of burials it has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of early East Iranian Avestan period as described in the Avesta. So far, no burials related to the culture have been found, and this is taken as possible evidence of the Zoroastrianism practice of exposure or sky burial.
Yaz I culture is argued to be related to the sedentarisation of the nomadic Indo-Iranians in the Eurasian Steppe, a synthesis with autochthonous traits. It extended from the central part of the Kopet Dag mountains to the fertile delta of the Murghab River. It is characterised for total lack of necropolises and tombs, as well as painted ceramic with triangle and ladder patterns. Recent research shows four groups of patterns, the triangular ( and chevrons), lozenges, bands, and of additional elements. It seems to be connected to the Chust culture of Fergana Valley, Mundigak V–VI in Sistan, and Pirak I–III on the Kacchi Plain. Compared to the Chust culture, no tombs from the Yaz culture have been found. Asko Parpola and Fred Hiebert argued that these cultures seemingly derived from the Haladun culture (1750–1200 BC) of Xinjiang, and some Andronovo culture contacts, indicating a Europid upper strata who spoke East Aryan. The introduction of the culture is seemingly related to the sound change *s > h when Iranian language came in the Indo-Iranian borderlands of Rgvedic tribes around 1500 BC, seen in the change of the Vedic Sanskrit river Sindhu into Avestan Hindu (Indus River), Sarasvati River into Harahvaiti.
The Yaz II complex seemingly correlates with the Airyanem Vaejah, homeland of those tribes who spoke Avestan language, different from both Western and Eastern Iranian languages, to be replaced in Bactria by the former at the end of the 1st millennium BC. Asko Parpola associated the change from Yaz I to Yaz II around 1000 BC with the migration of the Western Iranians (Medians, Persians). He considered that the Yaz I people spoke Proto-Eastern Iranian or Proto-Saka language.
The ruins of the ancient city of Nad-i Ali (9th-8th century BC) which has been identified with the capital of the Kayanian dynasty kingdom which coincides with the Yaz II/A (10th–8th century BC), while date of the late Kayanian capital Balkh to Yaz II/B period (7th–6th century BC).
At the end of Yaz II/B (8th–7th/6th century BC) the Murghab oasis (Yaz Depe, Aravali Depe, Takhirbay Depe) became deserted. It is probably explained by the bloody revolt of Frada (521 BC) mentioned in Behistun Inscription in which reportedly 55,243 Margians were killed and 6,972 taken as prisoners, and the conquest of Bactria.
Both the earlier BMAC culture as well as the later Yaz II period used wheel thrown ware. In contrast, Yaz I only used handmade ware which led to the use Handmade Painted Ware Cultures for this period. In addition, the Yaz culture, as well as the closely related Chust culture, is characterized by a widespread Sky burial, which led to the use of the term Sine Sepulchro (without graves) Cultural Complex.
Kuchuk Tepe settlement in Bactria (today Uzbekistan) is also related to the Yaz I culture. It looked like a flattened circular hill with an area of 0.5 hectares and height 8 m. The structures were built on a clay platform surrounded by a defensive wall. At the end of the first period (10th to mid-8th centuries BC) the building had twenty-five chambers; apparently it was a large fortified house, while towns start appearing in the region towards the end of that period. Other Bactrian well known sites with Yaz I ceramics are Tillya Tepe in northeastern Afghanistan, and Kyzyl Tepe, Dzharkutan, Kangurt-Tut, and Teguzak in Tajikistan. The single purely Yaz I site in Tajikistan is Karim-berdy which measures 500 x 300 m. Along the Kunduz River are located oasis Naibabad and Farukabad. The settlements at Bandykhan, between Shirabad and Denov in Uzbekistan, show Yaz I (14th–11th century BC), Yaz II/A (10th–9th/8th century BC), Yaz II/B (8th–7th/6th century BC), and Yaz III (6th–4th century BC).
Some Yaz I hand-made decorated pottery sites were investigated in southern Turkmenistan (previously northern Parthia). Some Yaz I strata was found in Parthia at Elken Depe, Ulug Depe and the northern mound at Anau, and all complexes overlie Namazga-Tepe VI type of Late Bronze Age strata. Unlike the Bronze Age centres, the Early Iron Age Yaz I settlements were much larger, in Elken Depe c. 12 ha, ringed with ramparts, while the citadel stood on a 6 m platform. At the site in Anau was found iron sickle from Yaz I period dated to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Askarov argued that it cannot be excluded that the Elken Depe was then the capital of northern Parthia.
There 20 Iron Age sites of Yaz I–III culture (1400–300 BC) in Serakhs oasis, the sub delta of Tedjen River in southern Turkmenistan. The sites follow the irrigation system, with average distance of 123 m between sites and rivers, however there is some scientific uncertainty about the irrigations in the Iron Age. The average distance between Yaz sites is 879 m. Most of them are dated to Yaz II–III periods, but once was found Yaz I decorated pottery. In the northern cluster of the sites mostly there is no trace of later occupation, indicating they were abandoned in the Iron Age.
At the village Anaw east of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan are two mounds (), of which the south kurgan's Iron Age materials (Anaw IV) from ca. 900 to 650 BC, like ceramics and metals, are related to those of Yaz I.
Regarding Turkmenistan, many notable archaeologist investigated Yaz ceramic assemblage; A. F. Ganialin and A. A. Maruschenko considered northern pastoralist influence, V. M. Masson it is connected to the Namazga-Tepe VI, but with a break of 100–150 years in-between, while Viktor Sarianidi that the Yaz I assemblage arrived from eastern Greater Khorasan. There three groups of hand-made ware in shape, color of sherd, and the admixture of crushed ceramics into the body of bowl. Recent research confirmed of the three the Masson's thesis that the Yaz I type ceramics in the foothill of Kopet Dag mountain are a natural development of the Late Bronze Age assemblage from Namazga VI period, but without any time lapse and external influence.
First, the geographical horizon of the Avesta makes it clear that the Avestan people lived in the eastern portion of Greater Iran. As regards the time frame, the oldest texts are assumed to correspond to the late second millenium BCE, whereas the later texts were probably composed in the first half of the first millenium BCE. The Avesta is therefore probably connected with the southward movement of Iranian tribes from the Eurasian steppe into southern Central Asia and eventually onto the Iranian plateau during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.
Moreover, the archeological features of the Yaz I culture are seen as the results of the intrusion of nomadic Indo-Iranians from the northern Andronovo culture and their interaction with indigenous traditions from the preceding BMAC culture. This is also substantiated by the genetic makeup of Iranophone populations of southern Central Asia. A 2021 study by Kumar et al. shows how by the late Iron Age, the population of this region was characterised by a combination of BMAC and Andronovo ancestries. Likewise, a 2022 study also shows how the ancestry of modern Tajiks and Yaghnobis largely formed during the early Iron Age by a mixture between these two groups.
Finally, a lack of graves and emerged in the Early Iron Age, especially in Yaz I and II cultures, the same period in which Zoroastrianism developed (works such as the Gathas often being dated to the second half or end of the 2nd millennium BC); the contemporary occurrence falls in line with certain traditions (see Tower of Silence) and cultural schools of thought, but there is ongoing scholarly debate surrounding such a connection. There is evidence for excarnation in non-Zoroastrian cultures like those in Siberia and Mongolia, as well excarnation and dakhmas in some Bronze Age sites like Gonur Tepe and Altyndepe, thus it could have persisted into Early Iron Age as a notion for the long process of formation of the Proto-Zoroastrianism and Avesta.
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