The abode house in China along the ancient Silk Road, believed to have been built about 1,500 years ago, resembled those from central Asia, Chinese archaeologists have claimed.
The adobe house being unearthed in Heishui Country was built 900 to 1,500 years after China's earliest adobe houses were constructed in Yingcheng City, Hubei Province in 3,000 BC.
But the adobe construction method is similar to that seen in Central Asia, according to Zhang, who is also a professor at Northwestern University's School of Cultural Heritage.
"And Western Asia should be the initial source, since the adobe house was developed there as early as 8,000 BC," state run Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang as saying.
Zhang said there were cultural exchange roads linking the Zhangye area and the West 4,000 years ago.
"Information discovered at the site indicates that there had been roads for such exchanges since prehistoric times, much earlier than the Silk Road, which was opened during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-25 AD)," Zhang said.
The well-known Silk Road refers to the land passage opened when Zhang Qian was sent west on a diplomatic mission during the Western Han Dynasty.
Starting from the city known today as Xi'an, the ancient Silk Road ran through northwest China's Gansu Province and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Central and Western Asia, before reaching the Mediterranean.
Findings and research related to the theory that other roads linked China and the Western world had existed prior to the Silk Road began appearing in 2006.
Since then, archaeologists have unearthed and salvaged a stretch of cemetery from the Warring States Period (about 475-221 BC) in Gansu's Tianshui City.
The burial goods included animal-print gold leaf that came from what is known today as the Russian republics of Altai and Tuva.
Of the objects found, glass cups and the tradition of using goldware and silverware also originated in the West.
Wang Hui, director of the Gansu Provincial Institute of Archaeology, confirmed that roads existed that facilitated Chinese and Western cultural exchanges in 2000 BC.
"Although it was not dominated by the silk trade then."
Zheng Binglin, a professor at the Institute of Dunhuang Studies of Lanzhou University, said that both archaeological and historical documents can prove the existence of roads that made cultural exchanges possible prior to Zhang Qian's missions.
A prominent book in the Pre-Qin Dynasty (2100-221 BC), 'Legends of Mountains and Seas', included references to Lop Nor, a lake in present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Dunhuang, home of the Mogao Grottoes. It said three rivers in the Dunhuang territory flowed west and fed into Lop Nor.
"This indicates that people in the Central Plain had recognised the Lop Nor and Dunhuang prior to the Qin Dynasty," Zheng said.
