Talk by Alice Yao, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Bunche Hall 3156
The Silk Road is often celebrated as one of the earliest transport networks linking China with Eurasia. Far less known, however, is the Southern Silk Road—a route stretching from central China through the mountainous southwest and into the eastern states of South Asia. Revived in contemporary discourse through the One Belt One Road project, this network was once imagined as an alternative passage to evade nomadic raids in the north, yet historical documentation remains scarce. Drawing on recent archaeological field research, my talk explores the actual contours of trade along this rugged frontier. Did silk and cloth drive exchange between China and India—or were horses and tea the more significant stimuli? And just how “old” is this road?
Alice Yao is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. An anthropological archaeologist, she is the author of
The Ancient Highlands of Southwest China and Archaeology of Han Empire (w/Wengcheong Lam). She studies frontier histories and ethic formations in southwest China at the intersection of archaeology, material culture, colonialism, and political economy, with a particular interest on the evolution of early trade networks spanning the highland-lowland massif in China, Burma, Laos and Vietnam. Her decade-long collaborations with Chinese archaeologists have resulted in the uncovering of ruins of indigenous societies and Han administrative towns in Yunnan, which was recognized as one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in China in 2024.
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies