Who was living in transoxania before the arrival of the Uzbeks?

the historical uzbeks are not the uzbeks of today. the actual uzbeks were an oghuz-turkic speaking nomadic confederation (the "uz-" in "uzbek" derives from "oghuz"), so their language was related to turkey turkish, azeri and turkmen among others. Soviet authorities used the term "uzbek" to refer to all turkic speakers in the region even though most turkic speakers there were settled Karluk-Turkic speakers whose language derived from Chagatay literary turkic who never called themselves Uzbeks. eventually the soviet terminology stuck though so now the terms are all messed up.

as for your question, iranic peoples mostly. even today a large part of the population of uzbekistan is natively persian speaking (called tajiks today which is also a term reinterpreted by the soviets).

>>2964033
Mongols really did a number on central Asia

The Tocharians.

>>2966239
no.

I'd waifu back center.

>>2964033
>Who was living in transoxania before the arrival of the Uzbeks? Persians and Scythians?
This might surprise you, but Black people. Black people were living all over the world until 10,000-8,000 years ago when the light skin mutation spread on the earth.

>>2966372
WE