Event: Pizza Talk: "Ecology, Subsistence, and Cultural Admixture: A Bioarchaeological Perspective of Community Health Along Northwest China's Prehistoric Trade Networks"

Speaker: Mauricio Hernandez, Postdoctoral Scholar, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA

This presentation shows the results of the preliminary analysis of long-term patterns of nutrition and activity as a result of climatic shift, subsistence changes and increased inter-cultural contact along a prehistoric exchange route across arid mountain passes and oasis towns, linking the Central Eurasian Plains with the Yellow River valley 2,000 years before the founding of the Silk Road trading networks. It is during this period that a climate cooling event began to drive Eurasian groups eastward to establish trade networks in order to obtain agricultural products and raw material for metalworking. Northern Chinese communities in turn benefited from Central Eurasian jade, introduction of new western cultigens, grazing animals, and cultural innovation with Inner Asian motifs. The goal is to investigate whether shifts in subsistence practices and perhaps kinship structure as a result of longterm cultural interaction with Eurasian peoples affected the livelihood and health of populations residing in the intermediate zone, covering the region of eastern Xinjiang, Gansu and eastern Qinghai – both as entire communities, as well as along gender lines.