This article examines the source-critical foundations for reconstructing the social life of Central Asia in the early Middle Ages, with particular attention to Sogdiana, Khorezm, Tokharistan, Chach and the Fergana Valley. The study argues that no single category of evidence is sufficient for describing the region's social organization, economy, urban life, political institutions or cultural relations. Chinese dynastic histories, Sogdian documentary archives, Bactrian and Khorezmian written materials, Arabic-Persian historical traditions, archaeology, numismatics, epigraphy and visual evidence each preserve different layers of the historical record. Their evidentiary value depends on authorship, chronology, genre, transmission and the institutional context in which the source was created. By comparing narrative evidence with documentary and material data, the article outlines a practical model of source criticism based on external criticism, internal criticism, contextualization, cross-verification and regional comparison. Particular attention is given to the Sui Shu and Tang histories, the Mount Mugh archive, Sogdian trade evidence and archaeological materials from Panjikent, Afrasiab, Paykent and Khorezm. The article concludes that a multi-source method allows historians to move beyond descriptive use of chronicles and to reconstruct social relations as dynamic systems involving political authority, urban communities, merchants, landholders, craftsmen, religious groups and mobile populations.

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