Abstract: Cultural site is the product of the interaction of natural and human factors,and it reflects the man-earth relationship during a specific historical period. This paper analyzed the spatio-temporal distribution of cultural sites and geographic background in the Ili River Valley, Xinjiang, China since the Xia Dynasty. Results show that the geomorphic types of cultural sites during the six periods (Xia Dynasty-Xizhou Dynasty, Spring and Autumn Period-Qin Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty-the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui Dynasty-Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty-Yuan Dynasty-Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty-the modern time)are respectively river terraces, river valley and hills and high level terraces in the valley, low mountains and hills, alluvial plains, diluvial plains, and valley plains. It is obvious that sites transfer from river terrace to plain. Distribution of cultural sites went through an evolution process of dispersion, expansion, convergence and concentration. The spatial pattern changed from "high in the east and low in the west" in the former three periods to "high in the west and low in the east" in the latter three periods, and the distribution center migrated from middle and upstream areas to downstream areas which illustrated the barycenter transfer of human activity space. There are significant differences in elevations and slopes of the sites' distribution during the six periods. Sites are distributed mainly in the elevations of grades 2-8 (601-1 300 m) and the slopes of grades 1-5 (0-9°), with the proportions of 66% and 78%, respectively. But as time went on, sites numbers showed a shifting trend from high elevations and slopes areas to low elevations and slopes regions. The ancient sites are the highest in quantity and largest in scale in Song Dynasty-Yuan Dynasty-Ming Dynasty, while the ancient tombs are the highest in quantity in Spring and Autumn Period-Qin Dynasty, the tombs' dominant culture experienced a change from Andronovo culture to Suodunbulake culture, and to Wusun culture. Admittedly, cultural sites in the Ili River Valley during the historical periods are based on natural factors such as landforms, terraces, climate, and water resources, and are affected by many humanity factors such as adjustment of the ruling policy by the Central Plains, vicissitude of the silk road, changes of human productive means, habits of nomadic ethnic, etc. But this study just focused on the influences of landforms, slopes and elevations on the spatio-temporal distribution of cultural sites, and did not considered the humanity factors; besides, we only made an comprehensive study of the cultural sites rather than a classified study, which should be further conducted.

Key words: Ili River Valley, cultural sites, spatiotemporal distribution, geographic background