> Metallurgy may be a key part of how the city could sustain itself at such a high altitude. The mountains are rich in iron ore and have dense juniper forests, which could be burned to fuel the smelting process. The researchers have also uncovered coins from across modern-day Uzbekistan, Maksudov says, suggesting the city may have been a hub for trade. It doesn’t appear to have been strictly a mining settlement, either—at Tashbulak, a cemetery contains the remains of women, elderly people and infants.

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> “We have realized that this was a large urban center, which was integrated into the Silk Road network and dragged the Silk Road caravans toward mountains ... because they had their own products to offer,” Maksudov says.

Checking, did anyone else get to this part of the article and think "Yes, this shall be my anthropological model for dwarves in my D&D game"?