The focus of this dissertation is the ivory and bone finds of an early historical period site in modern Afghanistan known as Begram, and what they may suggest about the site and the nature and extent of cultural exchange along the period's Silk Roads of Central Asia. Early efforts to date the objects suggested that certain pieces could be placed several centuries apart. Based on this dating and influenced by notions of the site as an ancient royal city, consistent with reigning archaeological paradigms, the excavators and virtually all subsequent scholarship contended that the objects had been found in a summer Kushan dynastic palace and that they had been gathered there over several centuries, as a royal treasure. This dissertation seeks to reexamine the finds, to deconstruct the original royal treasure theory, and to posit a different view of the artifacts and of the nature of the settlement. Stylistic reexamination of the finds supports the likelihood that the ivory and bone pieces were all produced contemporaneously in the 1st or early 2nd century CE. Comparison with analogous finds in Pompeii and sites in India and Central Asia supports this 1st century date, as does dating of the site's Chinese lacquers and Roman ware. New categorizations for the ivory and bone objects are presented, and early reconstructions of the objects are reviewed, and refuted where appropriate. Rather than relying solely on stylistic analysis of the pieces, this dissertation also places the finds in their archaeological context, which suggests that the site may not have been a royal palace but rather a significant trading settlement of the Kushan empire, well situated along crucial trade routes. By close stylistic comparison with finds at other Central Asian sites along the Silk Roads, the dissertation argues further that an amalgam of styles in certain Begram objects suggests local Central Asian production in a richly diverse cultural environment. The dissertation seeks to demonstrate that while some of the extraordinary carved ivory and bone objects may have moved to the site along trade routes which linked India with China and the Graeco-Roman West, others of these objects may have been produced at Begram itself, by local workshops and artisans.