University of Mississippi Researcher Uncovers Love, War, Drinking, and Polo Along the Silk Road

Study of skull trauma reveals violent past along China-Mongolia frontier

by Clara Turnage

As workers built the Great Wall of China and Mongolia grew ever closer to collapse, settlers along the fabled Silk Road may have passed their time brawling, brewing and mounting their horses for a game of polo.

University of Mississippi bioarcheologist Christine Lee‘s recent study of 275 skulls and skull fragments in museums and at universities in the region revealed stark differences in the lives of settled and nomadic communities along the ancient China-Mongolia border. She found evidence of warfare, corporal punishment and even sports-related injuries dating back over a thousand years.

The study also revealed that women in agricultural settlements faced higher rates of violence compared to their nomadic counterparts, shedding light on life along one of the world’s longest and most significant historical trade routes.

“This research is about how they lived, not about how they died,” said Lee, an assistant professor of anthropology at Ole Miss. “It’s about reconstructing their lives.

“People always had marriage and wars and culture and religions, but when they move, where does that history go? That’s what we’re trying to understand.”

The Silk Road stretched from China to Rome, a distance of more than 4,000 miles, and lasted nearly 1,500 years, until the mid-15th century. Along the road were settlements of agricultural societies and nomadic peoples who traded goods and information with the Silk Road’s travelers, she said.

“The Silk Road was their version of the internet,” she said. “There were stops at the length of each day’s travel, and everyone would stop and dance and share news and play music and drink beer. It’s how they got news.

“The thought that today is the only time we’ve been international or had international trade—that’s just not true.”

Women in nomadic societies appeared to have more freedom than those in agricultural ones, whereas agricultural societies imposed more restrictions. This difference is still true today, she said.

“I wasn’t surprised that there was a difference; I was surprised at where women were valued more equally,” Lee said. “Women in nomadic societies had a higher status than those in agricultural societies.

“That’s been known to be true and is still true today, but to see it play out in the data, that was surprising. Mongolian women still have a higher status than Chinese, Japanese, Korean women even today.”

The skulls, male and female alike, often showed signs of scalping, battlefield injuries, corporal punishment such as facial mutilation and even trepanation—the medical practice of removing a part of the skull to relieve pressure on the brain.

One pattern of injury—a nose broken by a large object—was repeated so often in the skulls that Lee decided she needed to know more. The injury was shared among men, women and children and did not match similar injuries caused by punches, slaps or other brawling injuries.

Lee partnered with Cassandra Kuba, a forensic anthropologist and professor of biological anthropology at Western Pennsylvania University, who compared the injury to modern trauma. Together, they found that the most similar injuries showed up in the broken noses of people who play hockey and soccer.

“It’s the same injury,” Lee said. “This was a quite civilized area with great food, great wine—foodies rather than anything else.

“So, we knew they weren’t really into brawling. But the tombs from this area, they have the balls and the sticks (and) tomb paintings of them playing polo. That’s how we kind of put it together.”

Having a better understanding of the complex social dynamics and daily lives of ancient Silk Road communities can demonstrate how archaeological evidence can challenge assumptions about the past, Lee said.

“By reconstructing what people have lost or forgotten, we see that everyone has a legacy,” she said. “It’s just a matter of reconstructing these lives.”