Silkworm cultivation predating the Silk Road in southern Central Asia (2000 BCE)
Historical narratives hold that sericulture originated in China and spread along the Silk Road roughly two millennia ago. In questioning this assumption, we conducted micromorphological and proteomics analyses on three cocoons recovered from the Sapalli Tepe (approximately 2000 to 1500 BCE) site in Uzbekistan. We identified them as Bombyx mori , directly dated to 1940 to 1765 cal. BCE, representing the earliest remains of Bombyx cocoons. We further report the earliest mulberry ( Morus sp.) charcoal fragments from Central Asia, attesting to mulberry- Bombyx sericulture in the Oxus nearly 2000 years earlier than previously documented. We highlight that early silkworms and mulberry trees may have been introduced to Central Asia along the southern slope of the Himalayas, although other routes could also plausibly explain the observed pattern. This multidisciplinary research rewrites the enigmatic history of early sericulture and its globalization.
Authors
- X Y Li
- Farhod Maksudov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8492-0634)
- Robert Nicholas Spengler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5648-6930)
- Qingyou Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9263-2886)
- Xinying Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5570-4863)
- Huiyun Rao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7901-8243)
- Hui Shên (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8223-3470)
- Guanhan Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3065-000X)
- Mutalibjon Khasannov
- Keliang Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5802-9098)
- Xinyi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4767-4737)
- Zhiqing Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8323-3245)
- Jian Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4834-8869)
- Yan Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0290-4084)
- Yi-Xiang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5246-5497)
- Akhmadali A. Askarov
Institutions
- Academy of Sciences Republic of Uzbekistan (UZ)
- Southwest University of Political Science & Law (CN)
- Southwest University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Kurgan State University (RU)
- Northwest University (CN)
- Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (CN)
- Ferghana Polytechnical Institute (UZ)
- Ferghana State University (UZ)
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (DE)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
- National University of Uzbekistan (UZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2026-07-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aec8738
- Primary Topic
- Silk-based biomaterials and applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- European Research Council