Abstract:

The issue of the Silk Road has always been a hotspot in the field of history; however, comprehensive quantitative research is lacking in the spatiotemporal divisions of the villages in the Middle Ages along the Silk Road. This knowledge gap needs to be addressed in research on the Silk Road. Ancient villages were more widespread than the majority of the medium-sized cities, as indicated throughout history. A village is not only a place where people work, live, and perform various social activities but also a microcosm of the ancient middle- and lower-class society. It carries rich and broad historical information and cultural connotations. Furthermore, villages are primarily established by geography or blood relationships and have maintained the cultural and national identities of Chinese descendants for thousands of years. Considering 98 village sites along the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty, Ningxia Province as an example, this study comprehensively uses historical literature analysis, Geographic Information Systemspatial analysis, and geographical detector technology to restore and summarize the overall spatial distribution characteristics of villages for the selection of basic geographic information of village sites and the preliminary vectorization of relevant auxiliary analysis data such as topography, water sources, roads, and cities. Furthermore, this study analyzes and explores the six influencing factors, namely, slope, aspect, fluctuation, water source, traffic location, and central city, and their determination degree on the spatial distribution of village sites. Results show one agglomeration center and four subagglomeration centers in the area, and a northwest-southeast spatial agglomeration area is formed in the jurisdiction of Guyuan City. The ancient ruins have obvious water-enduring characteristics, accounting for 54.08% of the total population within 1 km of the water source, and are mostly concentrated on hills and sunny terraced slopes of 2°-6°. In addition to the natural environment and other factors that are typically represented by water sources that restrict the formation and development of villages, central settlements and traffic locations are primary factors, with the former being the dominant factor. In the man-land relationship in the medieval village stage, the superiority of the natural environment itself is no longer the only or primary measure, and the influence of the humanistic society itself is becoming increasingly obvious. As a result, the determination of various elements of humanities and society on the location and distribution of villages substantially exceeds that of various elements of the natural environment, as observed during the periods no later than the Han Dynasty. In view of this situation, with the constant updates and improvements in existing data and thorough investigations, the development of ancient rural society along the Silk Road and the relationship between the geographical environment factors and human activities still needs further exploration.

Key words: Han Dynasty, Silk Road, village sites, spatial distribution, influencing factors