Silk Roads ', a highway of migrations in Eurasia. New prospects from bioarcheology and paleoecology

Silk Roads connected China, Far East, Middle East and Europe during several millennia. Besides goods and material, people, animal and plants were constantly moving along a large geographic space that is Eurasia. This information can be found in European, Arab, Persian and Chinese historical sources as well as archaeological investigations. In fact, bioarcheological and paleoecological studies in Central Asia (including archaeozoology, archaeobotany, paleogenetics) published during the last decades have refined our understanding about the trajectories of diffusion of human communities along with several botanical and faunal taxa (including parasites, fruits, domestic pigs, chicken, camels and horses) and how these have impacted the peopling of Central Asia as well as its economies and landscapes. These “biological” mobilities and connectivity in Eurasia together with the spread of technologies and know-hows are partly at the origin of the emergence of the globalization. Climate change (particularly during the Holocene), on varying time scales, and the various phases of aridification or, on the contrary, humidification of Central Asia, are also at the heart of studies that attempt to measure the impact on human and non-human migrations and on interactions between nomads and sedentary people (sharing and conflict over water resources; development of new agricultural and livestock practices, etc.). Furthermore, studies focus on the modalities of diffusion of migratory movements, within crossroads zones (oases) or along land and river routes. In-turn, the development of continental-scale "biological" mobilities have also risen new ecological challenges and risks for territories (erosion of the biodiversity, overuse of water, desertification, etc.) and communities (e.g. traditional knowledge losses) at the local scale.https://prospectives21.sciencesconf.org/browse/session?sessionid=63851