![]() Natron glass appeared in the early 1st millennium BCE, and was prevalent to the west of the Euphrates until about 800 CE. Natron-based glass is a type of soda glass made using the natron mineral as the flux, characterized by low magnesia and low potash contents 16. Provenancing these early artifacts is essential for determining the origin of Chinese and Asian glass. ![]() Archaeological investigations of early Chinese glass have revealed the presence of all three major groups 13, 14, 15, suggesting a period active in cultural interaction and technological exploration. The emergence of glass-making technology in East Asia during the 1st millennium BCE is an open question. Lead-barium glass first appeared in China and was also found in other parts of East Asia 11, 12. Potash glass can be found in South, Southeast, and East Asia, as well as in Europe. ![]() Soda glass was first manufactured in the Near East, and subsequently in Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. Glass had a diverse history of origin and dispersal. Man-made glass is one of the truly transnational products of civilization, and can be used to investigate long-distance interactions. The preceding period, i.e., the 1st millennium BCE, is therefore vital for the decisive acceleration and integration of the long-distance interactions in Eurasia. At the dawn of a surge in transcontinental material exchange, the Han Dynasty’s envoy Zhang Qian was sent for missions into Asia’s heartland in the late second century BCE, an event conventionally considered as the beginning of the historical Silk Road. This situation had changed by the second century BCE, when Chinese Warring States silk, mirrors and lacquer appeared in contemporaneous burials in Siberia and Inner Asia 10, and remote regions were recorded in Roman and Chinese literature. For instance, wheat did not reach the lower Yellow River in China until six millennia after its domestication in West Asia 8, 9. However, before and during much of the Bronze Age, the spread of population, materials, and innovations remained generally time-consuming, suggesting limited intensity of long-range communications. Recent studies have revealed prehistoric connections in Eurasia based on evidence such as human migration 1, 2, 3, the transmission of domesticated crops 4, 5, and the diffusion of pottery 6 and metallurgical 7 technologies. ![]() It is critically important to understand how such interactions evolved in time, extended to larger areas, and exerted increasing influence over cultures. Past inter-regional interactions in the Eurasian Continent shaped our world in numerous ways. The swift diffusion of natron glass across Eurasia in the 1st millennium BCE was likely facilitated by a three-stage process involving maritime and overland networks and multiple forms of trade and exchange, indicating a highly adaptable and increasingly efficient transcontinental connection along the ‘Proto-Silk Road’. Combining these findings, we propose that a considerable number of Mediterranean natron glass products had arrived in East Asia at least by the fifth century BCE, which may have been a contributing factor in the development of native Chinese glass-making. After establishing the compositional types and technological sequence of Mediterranean natron glass (eighth-second century BCE) using trace elements, we report the analysis of a mid-1st millennium BCE glass bead from Xinjiang, China, which was likely made with Levantine raw glass, and identify common types of stratified eye beads in Eurasia based on a compositional and typological comparison. Here we present a new interpretation of natron glass finds from both the West and the East. Natron-based glass was a vital part of material culture in the Mediterranean and Europe for nearly two millennia, but natron glass found elsewhere on the Eurasian Continent has not received adequate discussion, despite its influence on ancient Asian glass.
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