Human mobility in the Lop Nur region during the Han-Jin Dynasties: a multi-approach study
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(2020) 12:20
ORIGINAL PAPER
Human mobility in the Lop Nur region during the Han-Jin Dynasties: a multi-approach study Xueye Wang 1,2,3
&
Hui Shen 4 & Dong Wei 5 & Xingjun Hu 6 & Bing Xu 1,2 & Xiaoguang Qin 1,2 & Zihua Tang 1,2
Received: 22 May 2019 / Accepted: 10 December 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The Lop Nur region, as the junction of the Silk Roads, played an important role in ancient human migration between the East and the West, especially during the Han-Jin Dynasties (second century CE to fourth century CE). However, the scale and volume of human mobility in the region remain poorly understood. Here, we present a multi-approach (wood identification, strontium and oxygen isotopes of tooth enamel and historical documents) to investigate the extent of human mobility in the Lop Nur region. From a Han-Jin Dynasties cemetery, the appearance of nonlocal wood might suggest the existence of human migratory behaviors in the Lop Nur region. Furthermore, a piece of lacquerware with the possible origin of eastern China and a large-scale mural tomb likely belonged to a Kushan emigrant indicate the existence of long-distance connections across the Asia interior. Strontium and oxygen isotope data show a highly mobile population in the Lop Nur region, and the great isotopic variation suggests that these immigrants have diverse origins. In context with historical documents, we infer that the Lop Nur region was once the political, economic, and cultural meeting place of various societies, and also a communication corridor on the Silk Roads during the HanJin Dynasties. Keywords Migration . Lop Nur region . Isotopic analysis . Silk Roads . Han-Jin Dynasties
Introduction The Silk Roads were a complex series of pathways linking trade centers from China to the Eastern Mediterranean and b e y o n d , w h i c h l a rg e l y c o n t r i b u t e d t o e a s t - w e s t
* Xueye Wang [email protected] * Zihua Tang [email protected] 1
Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
2
Innovation Academy for Earth Science, CAS, Beijing 100044, China
3
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
4
Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origin, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China
5
Research Centre for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China
6
Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, Urumqi 830000, China
communications crossing the Eurasian continent (Kuzmina 2008; Frachetti et al. 2017). At one of the critical positions on the Silk Roads, the Lop Nur region in northwestern China played an important role in the history of human migration and cultural communications over the Eurasian continent (Li et al. 2010; Yang et al. 2014) (Fig. 1a). The historical records provided clear evidence of a complex political situation in th
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