Eura sian Pre his tory, 6 (1–2): 167–198. PRE HIS TORIC AR CHAE OL OGY IN THE ZHUNGE’ER (JUNGGAR) BASIN, XINJIANG, CHINA Pe ter Wei Ming Jia1, Alison V. G. Betts1 and Xinhua Wu2 1 De part ment of Ar chae ol ogy, Uni ver sity of Syd ney, NSW 2006, Aus tra lia; pe [email protected], [email protected] 2 The Ar chae o log i cal In sti tute of Chi nese Acad emy of So cial Sci ence, 27 Wangfujing Road, Beijing 100710, China; wxh63114@ya hoo.com.cn Ab stract Xinjiang is a vast area of mountains and desert basins that formed the main route for contact between early China and the West. The southern Talimu Basin is well known for the remark able organic preser va tion there of burials and aban- doned settle ments. Lesser known is the north ern Zhunge’er Basin that lay across the route out to the Eurasian steppes. From at least as early as the Bronze Age it wit nessed impor tant trans missions of technol o gies and cultural influ ence, but at present the nature and tim ing of these is poorly under stood. This paper is a review of research to date on the pre historic pe- riods in the Zhunge’er Basin and the areas imme di ately surround ing it. The paper also provides a review of the problems that need to be addressed in the archae ol ogy, and par ticu larly the chronol ogy, of the region. IN TRO DUC TION focus and also possi bly becaus e of the unusual pres er va tion, most ar chae o log i cal work has been The Zhunge’er (Junggar)1 Ba sin, to gether concen tra ted here. Yet, of the two basins, for the with the Talimu (Tarim) Basin to the south, make pre his toric pe ri ods, the Zhunge’er is ar gu ably the up the terri tory of Xinjiang, at the far western end more im portant , at least in the Bronze and Iron of China. These vast arid in land basins have an Ages. ex traor di narily rich cul tural his tory that has so far In this paper the authors seek to bring to a only been doc u mented in a very frag mentar y and wider, and par ticu larly a West ern, au di ence a de - tan ta liz ing man ner. Ar chae o log i cal work be gan in tailed review of what is known to date of the later Xinjiang in the early 20th century but, unti l a few pre his tory of the Zhunge’er Ba sin, in cor po rat ing decade s ago, much of this re lated to ba sic explo - re cently pub lished Chi nese re search2. From the ra tion and not to sys tem atic re search and ex ca va - late 1980s onwards, several sum marie s of the tion. Of the two basins, the Talimu has been more available ev idence for the later pre his tory of ex ten sively in ves ti gated. Its dry cli mate has per - Xinjiang have been publi shed, each one refin ing mit ted the most ex cep tional pres er va tion of or - that of previ ous works3. However, our knowledge ganic mate rial and from here re search ers have re - of this impo r tant re gion is still very sketchy, covered a wealth of manuscri pts, wooden arte- based largely on rel a tive ce ramic chro nol o gies facts, fabric s and mum mifie d hu man bodies . The from widely disperse d funer ary context s. The aim Zhunge’er Basin to the north has a slightly here is to dis cuss in more de tail the par tic u lar ev i - moister cli mate and does not ex pe ri ence the same dence for the northern part of Xinjiang, the condi ti ons of pres erva ti on. The main trade routes Zhunge’er Basin. The paper also review s the of the Silk Roads passed through the south ern problem s that need to be ad dressed in the archae - Talimu Ba sin. Be cause of this im por tant his tor i cal ology, and parti cu larly the chronol ogy, of the re- 168 Peter Wei Ming Jia et al. Fig. 1. Map: Physi cal fea tures of Xinjiang gion, as the starting point to a new field study that ing Uighur and Kazakhs, Mongols, and the Man- aims to focus on some of these issues 4. Key con - darin speaking Hui and Han Chinese . Nom adic or cerns with regard to the an cient history of the re- semi-nom adic pastoralism – sheep, goat, cat tle gion are the or igins and movem ents of popu la- and horse herding – forms the main econom y for tions and the trans mission of cul tural traits and most Kazakhs and Mongols. The Uighur econ- inno vati ons. The questi on of the ori gins of the omy is based on oasis agri cul ture com bined with Xinjiang popu lati ons is a vexed and com plex one. stock raising. The Hui and Han have been migrat - The most re cent ar gu ments are sum ma rized to ing here from neighbor ing ar eas to the south-east provide a background for inter preta ti on of the ar- such as Qinghai (Köknor) and Gansu since the chae o log i cal data. The spe cific ques tion of the Qing Dy nasty around three hundred years ago, spread of met al lur gi cal tech nol o gies is also ad- bringing with them a tradi ti on of vil lage based ag- dressed as this is a funda m ental com po nent of the ri cul ture.5 pat terns of tech nol ogy trans fer be tween Eur asia Xinjiang is made up of two large desert bas- and China. ins surrounded by high moun tains. In the south is the larger and more arid Talimu Ba sin; in the north is the Zhunge’er Basin, which has a very slightly milder cli mate. The two are sep a rated by GEO GRAPH ICAL CON TEXT the high ridges of the Tianshan (Tängri Tagh), a Xinjiang is a large region cover ing 165000 steep range of young, glacie r-capped, fold moun - square kilo m eter s of deserts, moun tains, grass- tains. To the west, the way to the Eurasi an steppe lands and oases. It has a sparse, scat tered and eth - is blocked by a string of moun tains stretching nical ly mixed popu lati on of nom ads and oasis from the Pamier (Pamir) range in the south up to dwell ers. The largest groups are the Turkic speak - the Aletai (Altay) in the north. The main routes Prehistoric ar chae ol ogy in the Zhunge’er (Junggar) Ba sin, Xinjiang, China 169 link ing East with West run from the Ferghana val- HIS TORY OF RE SEARCH ley up over the dif ficult Terekdavan pass across the Pamier range into the Talimu Ba sin at Kashi Inter est in the archae ology of Xinjiang first (Kashgar), up the Yili (Ili) River val ley through began around the mid-ninetee nth cen tury, with a passes across the Tianshan into the Tulufan se ries of Eu ro pean trav eler-ex plor ers, among the (Turfan) Depres sion and the Zhunge’er Basin, most fa mous of whom are Marc Aurel Stein, Sven and more easil y into the Zhunge’er Basin at two Hedin and Al bert von Le Coq (Stein, 1907, 1912, points, across some low lands at Tacheng-Kela- 1921, 1928; Hedin, 1899, 1903, 1931, 1933, mayi (Qöqek – Karamay), and up the E’erqisi 1940, 1943; von Le Coq, 1928). These early ex- (Irtish) river val ley. To the east, narrow corri dors plorers con centra ted mainly on the Talimu Basin lead out betwee n the moun tains into the Gobi in south ern Xinjiang. They explore d the desert Desert and In ner Mon go lia, provid ing the route ghost towns such as Loulan (Krorainia) and into mainland China. This specia l geograph ica l searched for Buddhist manuscri pts among the loca ti on has placed Xinjiang in a unique posi ti on, caves and tem ples on the desert rim. The not only as a key node on the Silk Road in histor i - Zhunge’er Basin was al most left un touched, ex- cal times, but also as a crit i cal point for the meet - cept for some inter est in tem ples and later walled ing of culture s and the transm ission of ideas and cit ies (Chen Xingcan, 1997a: 46–48). Since that innovations in the prehistoric periods. time, ar chae o log i cal re search in Zhunge’er has The Zhunge’er Basin is a land of sharp con- been carrie d out by Chi nese archae olo gists on a trasts (Fig. 1). The centra l Ku’erbantonggute lim ited scale. Work has been mainly re stricted to (Gurbantunggut) Desert is low-ly ing, around 200 re gional sur veys and res cue ex ca va tions7 (Fig. 2). meter s above sea level, while the surround ing Study of the prehis tory of Xinjiang began in moun tains rise rapidl y to around 3000–4000 me- the early twen ti eth cen tury, but se ri ous anal y sis of ters.