Scientists discover ancient silk production in Uzbekistan nearly 2,000 years before the Silk Road

For generations, the history of silk has been told in a fairly straightforward way. Domesticated silkworms emerged in ancient China, silk travelled westward once the Silk Road developed, and the knowledge required to raise silkworms followed the same route. That sequence has shaped both archaeological research and popular history for decades. The story may be far older and rather less linear. Evidence recovered from Bronze Age settlements in present-day Uzbekistan suggests that people in southern Central Asia were already cultivating mulberry trees and raising domesticated silkworms around 2000 BCE. If the findings withstand further scrutiny, they would shift the accepted timeline for organised sericulture in the region by almost two millennia.Ancient silkworm cocoons found at Bronze Age Sapalli Tepe in UzbekistanThe research centres on Sapalli Tepe, a Bronze Age settlement in southern Uzbekistan belonging to the Oxus or Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. During excavations, archaeologists recovered three ancient silkworm cocoons alongside plant remains preserved in archaeological deposits.According to the new study published in Science Advances, titled “Silkworm cultivation ...