Invented in the 19th century as an allegory for large-scale human interaction across Eurasia, the idea of “the Silk Road” continues to shape archaeological investigations of trade, travel, cultural exchange, and mobility in the region between the Near East and East Asia. Though long used to refer to trade between the ancient and late medieval periods, the framework of the Silk Road has grown increasingly popular and is used to orient research on mobilities of much earlier periods, as well as to frame movement and exchange at the molecular level, including of human genes. This article reviews the shared challenges confronted by Silk Road archaeologists and explores the narratives about human culture that have been tied up in the Silk Road metaphor from the beginning. Through a review of recent work on and along the Silk Road, I trace common narratives and shared scalar challenges across archaeologies of landscape, material culture, gender, mobile lifeways, and isotopic and genetic assemblages, and examine tensions between globality and locality within Silk Road cultural heritage and the implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

作为欧亚大陆大规模人类互动的寓言，“丝绸之路”的概念于 19 世纪发明，继续影响着近东和东亚之间地区贸易、旅游、文化交流和流动性的考古调查. 尽管长期以来被用来指代古代和中世纪晚期之间的贸易，但丝绸之路的框架越来越受欢迎，并被用来指导对更早时期流动性的研究，以及在分子水平上构建运动和交换，包括人类基因。本文回顾了丝绸之路考古学家面临的共同挑战，并探讨了从一开始就与丝绸之路隐喻相关的人类文化叙事。通过回顾丝绸之路及其沿线的近期工作，