Abstract
Despite the recently growing interest in the phenomenon of a city and its imprints in archaeological record, the appearance of urban form in the Achaemenid and Hellenistic period in Central Asia has been studied only insufficiently. The aim of the contribution is the evaluation of archaeological evidence on Central Asian urbanism in these periods following the functional definition, which emphasizes variation in urban form across time and space.
Based on the current state of research, a presence of cities in the Achaemenid period is only hardly recognizable. For this period, the hypothesis is introduced, consisting in the alternative fulfilment of urban functions in the form of their dispersal among the landscape.
A comparison could be drawn between this phenomenon and so-called low-density urbanism. For the Hellenistic period, the occurrence of urban form can be firmly recognized, nevertheless, rather low degree of urbanisation could be supposed.
Compact cities typical e.g. for ancient Eastern Mediterranean seem to be in Bactria rather foreign, imported form of settlement.