A row of temporary houses alongside a Chinese national flag are eye-catching in wilderness on the outskirts of Samarkand in eastern Uzbekistan.
A home since late 2013 to Chinese archaeological staff, the site could be a stop on the ancient Silk Road or on the migration route of the ancient Greater Yuezhi (Rouzhi) nomads.
Working together with Uzbek colleagues, Chinese researchers are trying to excavate material remains and piece together memories from a Greater Yuezhi migration, restoring a missing part of Central Asian history.
RESTORING CENTRAL ASIAN HISTORY
"Where the Greater Yuezhi people had gone is a common topic of history, anthropology and linguistics," said Wang Jianxin, chief archaeologist at the Institute of Silk Road Studies under the Xi'an-based Northwest University of China.
In seeking their traces more than 2,000 years ago, the joint team between archaeologists from the Chinese university and Uzbekistan has been engaged in excavations in both the Central Asian country and the neighboring Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.
The ancient nomads were a branch split from the Yuezhi people who were first reported in Chinese histories living in the west of the modern Chinese province of Gansu.
An answer to the mystery of their whereabouts is also about the ethnic origin and composition in Central Asian countries.
Chinese and Uzbek researchers have found earthen and stone winter settlement sites left by other ancient nomads.
In July, they unearthed a large ancient tomb, where gold-embedded turquoise ornaments were found along with the female remains in the major burial chamber.
Though their study shows the tomb in southern Uzbekistan was built by the Kangju people, the Yuezhi's contemporaries, the findings have helped map the then domains of the two powers, narrowing the range of possible moving routes of the Greater Yuezhi people.
CONTRIBUTING TO WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY
Zhang Qian, the envoy sent by an emperor of China's Han Dynasty to seek a military alliance in the west with the Greater Yuezhi, eventually arrived in their land via Kangju after the ordeals of a long travel.
Like this China-Uzbekistan joint project, Chinese historical records are providing increasingly more archaeological clues to help better restore and understand the Oriental history.
As regards archaeological excavation, it is known that theories and working approaches can be similar, but how to interpret and determine the excavated involves more, such as the knowledge of history, culture and customs, as well as the way of thinking.
"Human factors matter more in this science," said Chen Ling, a research fellow at the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University.
"Mistakes sometimes did occur," he said, citing the Soviets misreading Chinese eave tiles and pan-and-roll roofing tiles at a Silk Road site in the 1950s.
As a result of ignorance of Chinese architecture, a Buddhist temple site was restored as a mosque, and it would have "led to a sequence of distortions afterwards," Chen said.
Noting an increase in archaeological collaboration between China and other countries, Chen believes Chinese researchers are contributing more to the Oriental history restoration as well as the world history interpretation.
SERVING BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE
For Chinese researchers, the joint project with Uzbekistan also combines the past with the present. It highlights both the historical context and the cultural element of China's Belt and Road Initiative aimed at common development and prosperity.
Above all, it was Zhang Qian's diplomatic mission in ancient China that prompted the prosperous trade route now known as the Silk Road.
On top of sharing results, a Uzbek ownership of the unearthed relics and a whole-course participation by both sides in excavation and study are among the principles guiding the archaeological collaboration, Wang said.
Doing protection while doing excavation is also a must-do.
The Chinese expert described such an archaeological excavation as "responsible."
Similar joint projects are also going on beyond the Uzbek section of the initiative's routes. For example, looking for remains from the ancient Xiongnu nomads in Mongolia, and from the maritime silk road in Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar in Southeast Asia, and in as far as Egypt and Kenya in Africa.
Culture is an important element in the Belt and Road Initiative, and it serves as a bridge to help increase the understanding between peoples, said Wang Wei, director general of the Archaeological Society of China.
"It is the archaeologists' duty to push the exchange and mutual learning between world civilizations," said Wang.
