Abstract
The present report is a summary of recent field investigations conducted jointly by Hazara University
(Mansehra), the University of Leicester (UK) and Abdul Wali Khan University (Mardan) as part of
a 3-year project titled Archaeological Invesrigarions and rheir Link ro Heritage Managemenr in
District Chirral, Khyber Pakhrunkhwa Province, Pakistan being funded by the British Council.
Archaeologists, students and technical experts from these three institutions participated in the field
work that spread over a period of about two months.
The chief aims of this project are to systematically explore the archaeology of the Chitral
Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and to develop ways of presenting and managing this unique
heritage. Chitral is one of the most remote areas in all Pakistan, and primarily known to foreign
and domestic visitors for natural beauty, mountaineering, hiking and wild life. Preliminary
investigations show that Chitral has a wealth of cultural history, which is poorly understood. If this
cultural history can be identified, excavated and recorded, it would not only help scholars and residents
of the valleys to understand the past in this area, but it could also be used to develop sustainable cultural
tourism here. In the first field season (2009), archaeological survey was the primary means of obtaining
archaeological data, and in order to remove bias and to begin to obtain a more complete picture of
pmst settlement activity in this region, a systematic approach to survey was taken. This systematic
approach consisted of surveying in 24 parallel transects, each one five km long, allowing us to
cover an area of 1252 km in total. This method is in direct contrast to the more usual 'village to
village' survey approach, which has been employed in this region to date. Alongside this new survey
methodology, sites reported by local people were also recorded, as well as preliminary work on the
heritage element of the project, which will be reported separatel
IHSAN ALI, IBRAHIM SHAH, RUTH YOUNG , ABDUL SAMAD. (2010) Latest Archaeological Explorations in the Chitral Valley (2009) , Pakistan Heritage, Volume 2, Issue 1.
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