![da bei zhou tibetan da bei zhou tibetan](https://c-cl.cdn.smule.com/rs-s80/arr/bc/4b/d2e913d2-717a-4156-abdd-967a7c72ddd4.jpg)
Due to the harsh natural environment of the QTP, early trade routes existed around the margins of the QTP and historical and archaeological evidence (e.g., human activities, wheat and barley crops) from along these trade routes can be traced back to prehistoric times. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is a key region connecting all of East, Central, West, and South Asia owing to this geographical fact, this region has become the core of the Belt and Road Initiative. Through this network, China has conducted extensive cultural and economic exchanges with Central, West, and South Asia. More specifically, the Overland Silk Roads (OSR) is a complex trade network that was formed by uniting large trading centers along with ancient transportation routes. The Belt and Road Initiative is designed to bean open, international network of cooperation and is becoming a multi-nation platform for exploring new mechanisms of international economic governance. 2018-006.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. įunding: This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, no.41761018 The Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Pan-Third Pole Environment Study for a Green Silk Road (Pan-TPE) XDA2004010101, and Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology and Applications, no. Township settlement GPS point data described in Methods is obtained from open source maps by registering and applying for the online service according to the provided website. S1 Table GPS data set is obtained from literature materials. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. Received: ApAccepted: DecemPublished: December 30, 2019Ĭopyright: © 2019 Lancuo et al. PLoS ONE 14(12):Įditor: Wenwu Tang, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, UNITED STATES (2019) Simulating the route of the Tang-Tibet Ancient Road for one branch of the Silk Road across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
![da bei zhou tibetan da bei zhou tibetan](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71cOiZzYpHL.jpg)
Moreover, we argue that the warm and humid climate and the human migration to the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau were the fundamental driving forces for the formation of the Tang-Tibet Ancient Road.Ĭitation: Lancuo Z, Hou G, Xu C, Liu Y, Zhu Y, Wang W, et al. However, there was a certain deviation between the key points recorded in Tibetan section and the simulated route we found that the reason is the relative oxygen content (ROC) became a limited factor of the choice of the Tibetan section road. We then compared the locations of known key points documented in the literature, and found a significant correspondence in the Qinghai section. Considering the Complex geographical and environmental factors of inner Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, we constructed a weighted trade route network based on geographical integration factors, and then adopted the principle of minimum cost and the shortest path on the network to simulate the ancient Tang-Tibet Ancient Road. As the only route formed in the inner Qinghai-Tibet plateau, the Tang-Tibet Ancient Road promoted the extension of the Overland Silk Roads to the inner Qinghai-Tibet plateau.