When German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term "Silk Road" in 1877, he may have never imagined that similar roads had existed long before the ancient trade route originated in the 1st century BC.
At the archaeological site of the former Heishui Country (2100-1500 BC), located in what is now Zhangye City in northwest China's Gansu Province, a team led by Zhang Liangren carefully clears away dust with professional equipment, slowly revealing the walls of an adobe house.
The adobe house being unearthed in Heishui Country was built 900 to 1,500 years after China's earliest adobe houses were constructed in Yingcheng City, Hubei Province in 3000 BC. But the adobe construction method is similar to that seen in Central Asia, according to Zhang, who is also a professor at Northwestern University's School of Cultural Heritage.
"And Western Asia should be the initial source, since the adobe house was developed there as early as 8000 BC," Zhang said.
He confirmed that there were cultural exchange roads linking the Zhangye area and the West 4,000 years ago.
"Information discovered at the site indicates that there had been roads for such exchanges since prehistoric times, much earlier than the Silk Road, which was opened during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-25 AD)," Zhang said.
The well-known Silk Road refers to the land passage opened when Zhang Qian was sent west on a diplomatic mission during the Western Han Dynasty. Starting from the city known today as Xi'an, the ancient Silk Road ran through northwest China's Gansu Province and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Central and Western Asia, before reaching the Mediterranean.
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