Editor-in-Chief
F.A. Maqsudov
Doctor of Historical Sciences (DSc), Professor
F.A. Maqsudov was born on 14 December 1972 in the Markhamat district of Andijan region, into a family of the intelligentsia. He is Director of the Institute of Anthropology of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (formerly the National Center of Archaeology), Doctor of Historical Sciences (DSc), Professor, and Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal "Uzbek Anthropological Journal".
Influenced by his father, Alijon Maqsudov, Doctor of Biological Sciences and Professor, he became interested in fieldwork from a young age. In 1996 he graduated from the History Faculty of Fergana State University, having also studied at the Middle East Technical University (Turkey) in 1992–1994 under a student exchange programme. From 1996 to 1999 he pursued postgraduate studies at the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, and from 1999 began working at the institute as a junior researcher. In 2004–2006 he completed a second master's degree at the Department of Ecology of Brown University (USA), where he mastered GIS technologies.
From 1996 he actively took part in excavations at the Akhsikent and Margilan sites under the guidance of his mentor, archaeologist A. Anarbaev. In 2003 he defended his candidate dissertation on "The Origins and Development Stages of the Farming Culture of Southern Fergana", and in December 2020 he successfully defended his doctoral (DSc) dissertation on "The Medieval Nomadic Culture of Ustrushana". From 2011 to 2015 he taught Central Asian archaeology as an associate professor at Aksaray University (Turkey); during this period, in collaboration with Professor M. Frachetti of Washington University (USA), he began studying the culture of nomadic communities in the mountainous regions of Ustrushana. Since 2019 he has served as Director of the Institute of Archaeological Research of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, then of the National Center of Archaeology, and currently of the Institute of Anthropology. He is also Chairman of the Scientific Council for the conferral of academic degrees at the Institute of Anthropology.
He is the author of two monographs and more than 60 scientific articles, over 15 of which have been published in respected international journals. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the journals "Archaeology of Uzbekistan" (2020–2022) and "History of the Material Culture of Uzbekistan", and as responsible editor for a number of candidate dissertations, research projects, and teaching manuals.
F.A. Maqsudov's research concerns the ancient and medieval archaeology of Central Asia — in particular the Fergana Valley and Ustrushana — and the history of nomadic pastoralist culture. Applying methods from modern fields such as landscape archaeology, archaeogenetics, archaeobotany, bioarchaeology, and geoarchaeology, he conducts research reconstructing the formation of nomadic communities' culture in Central Asia.
One of the central directions of his scientific work is the medieval nomadic culture of the mountainous regions of Ustrushana. A distinctive feature of his research is a method grounded in a multidisciplinary approach, through which he reconstructs the past of Central Asian nomadic pastoralist culture. He currently leads two international scientific expeditions, including a joint Uzbekistan–USA archaeological expedition working in the mountainous regions of Jizzakh province, increasingly incorporating anthropology and bioarchaeology into the scope of his research.
He has lectured at leading research centres and universities in France, Germany, Great Britain, China, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, and has actively taken part in numerous joint international archaeological expeditions. He is fluent in English, Turkish, and Russian. On 1 September 2019 he was awarded the "Shuhrat" medal for his contribution to the development of science and his active role in educating the younger generation.
As an organizer of science, F.A. Maqsudov pays particular attention to continually popularizing new research findings and discoveries in archaeology among young people, seeking to instil a sense of national identity through the scholarly study of the ancient history of our country and its people.
More information about the Editor-in-Chief is available on the website of the Institute of Anthropology of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan.