
The settlements, which are thought to have flourished between the sixth and the eleventh centuries, were discovered using remote sensing with lasers mounted on drones at an elevation of over 2 km above sea level. Merely 3% of the global populace currently resides above this elevation. Cusco, Peru, and Lhasa, Tibet, are two uncommon examples.
One of the cities - Tugunbulak, sat more than 2,000m (6,600 ft) above sea level. The Tugunbulak was about 120 hectares in area and was estimated to have been home to tens of thousands of people, making it comparable in size to Samarkand at the time.
The second city, Tashbulak, was smaller. It did, however, attract researchers due to its large cemetery, which contained 400 graves of men, women, and children. Among them are some of the oldest Muslim burial sites in the region.
The researchers team believes Tugunbulak and the smaller city, Tashbulak, were bustling settlements between the 8th and 11th centuries, during the Middle Ages when the area was controlled by a powerful Turkic dynasty.
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