The Silk Roads in the Bronze Age: critical links between Eurasia and China

中国伟大文明的早期崛起归功于从遥远的欧亚大草原引进的重要技术创新，但几乎没有人知道这个过程是如何发生的，以及为什么发生的。该项目旨在通过在新疆西部中国最重要的青铜器时代考古遗址之一的发掘来探索这些问题。这些创新包括小麦和大麦的种植，铜、银和金的复杂冶金技术，驯养的马和辐条轮战车，这成为古代世界普遍的战争武器。该项目旨在通过环境和土地利用潜力的交互式GIS建模来测试文化传播理论。

The early rise of China's great civilization owed its rapid momentum to important technological innovations that were brought in from the far distant Eurasian steppes, but almost nothing is known of how or why this process took place. The project aims to explore these questions through excavations at one of China's most important Bronze Age archaeological sites in western Xinjiang. The innovations include the cultivation of wheat and barley, complex metallurgical techniques in bronze, silver and gold, the domesticated horse and the spoke-wheeled chariot, which became a universal weapon of war across the ancient world. The project aims to test theories of cultural transmission through interactive GIS modelling of environment and land use potential.