Description: One of the least known but culturally rich and complex regions located at the heart of Asia, Xinjiang was a hub for the Silk Roads, serving international links between cultures to the west, east, north and south. Trade, artefacts, foods, technologies, ideas, beliefs, animals and people traversed the glacier covered mountain and deser
Brief description: Alison Betts, Professor of Silk Road Studies, University of Sydney, has worked on the archaeology of Central Asia for more than two decades and more recently on Xinjiang. Marika Vicziany, Professor Emerita in Arts, Monash University, has specialised during the last four decades in Indian and Chinese culture and socioeconomic change. Peter Weiming Jia, Research Fellow, University of Sydney, has for more than a decade studied the Bronze Age sites of Xinjiang. Angelo Andrea Di Castro, Research Adjunct in Arts, Monash University, has been working on archaeological sites in Italy, Nepal, Australia and China for some three decades.