1This chapter of the Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire overviews the archaeological evidence from the wide territories once corresponding to the Achaemenid satrapies of Carmania, Drangiana, Makā, Arachosia, India, Sattagydia and Gandhāra. The Author stresses the meagreness of the available data for the 6^th-4^th centuries BCE in this area (especially if compared with the southwestern portion of the empire), and discusses the main findings from the few excavated sites (particularly focusing on Qaleh Kutchek, Tepe Yahya, Dahane-ye Gholaman, Old Kandahar, Charsadda, and Akra).

2The Author follows other scholars in believing that the local settlement crisis in the 2^nd millennium BCE can be interpreted as a consequence of relevant climatic changes and increased aridity. In His opinion, the first signs of gradual recovery and resettlement predate the Achaemenid socio-political and socio-economic sway over the area. Indeed, some hints are clearly detectable in the first half of the 1^st millennium BCE, when also new forms of subterranean irrigation techniques (earlier than the well-known qanāt system) were developed. Although not mentioned by the Author, the aforesaid chronological statement has been partly confirmed for Afghan Sistan as well, in a recent paper by Mitchell Allen and William B. Trousdale (“Early Iron Age culture of Sistan, Afghanistan”, Afghanistan 2(1), 2019, p. 29-69).