领域：学术论文 · 人文科学

Summary 
Why did some (but not all) Chinese dynasties invest huge amounts of resources in the construction of ‘Great Walls’? The proposed project will focus on precisely that question, in an attempt to unravel what is, perhaps, the most enigmatic episode of ‘Great Wall’ construction. Roughly dated to the 10th-13th centuries CE and located far to the north of other ‘Great Wall’ lines, this Medieval Wall System (MWS) is one of the longest walls ever constructed in world history, stretching over more than 3,500 km and including large auxiliary structures. The amount of resources invested in this MWS must have been enormous, but historical sources are mute about its construction, and modern scholarship is unable to date it precisely or understand why it was built and how it functioned. 
The motives behind the construction of the MWS, its political context and ecological implications, are highly relevant for the understanding of the complex history of China and Mongolia on the eve of Chinggis Khan’s rise to power. However, because in the past scholars have assumed that ‘Great Walls’ were fortified border lines designed to stop military incursions, such issues’ impetus and consequences were never addressed. Hence, the proposed project will put forward novel hypotheses, analyse them by using advanced recovery and analytical methods, and examine them against a broad archaeological, historical, environmental, and geographical background. The research hypothesis of the proposed project is that the MWS was not built as a defence against invading armies, but rather as a means to monitor and sometimes stop the movement of nomadic people and their herds. The large scale movements of nomadic people towards more central areas of the empire happened, I would suggest, in times of ecological stress in the Steppe.

Objectives 
Why did some (but not all) Chinese dynasties invest huge amounts of resources in the construction of ‘Great Walls’? The proposed project will focus on precisely that question, in an attempt to unravel what is, perhaps, the most enigmatic episode of ‘Great Wall’ construction. This wall system is located in North China and Mongolia and covers a distance of over 3,500 km. However, if one takes into account the different parallel lines, their accumulated length is probably closer to 6,500 km, making it one of the longest walls ever constructed in world history.
Notwithstanding its huge size and the vast resources, material and human, that must have been invested in its construction, it is unclear who built it and for what purpose(s). The construction of this complex system, which includes long earthen walls and accompanying ditches, auxiliary structures (camps, beacon towers, etc.) and roads, is dated roughly to the 10th to 13th centuries CE, but its construction is not described in any of the relevant historical chronicles. Moreover, very little historical and archaeological research has been done on it. This Medieval Wall System (MWS) is enigmatic not only because its history is obscure, but also because it is located deep in the Steppe area, hundreds of kilometres north and west of earlier and later lines of the so-called ‘Great Wall of China’. 
The proposed project shall address some of the fundamental questions regarding the MWS: When was it built and for how long was it in use? Who built it? For what purposes? What was the structure of the MWS (including the associated features) and how did it function? What amount of human labour and other resources were necessary in order to build it? On a more fundamental level, this project will attempt to answer the more basic question: What was the logic behind the construction of such long and enormously expensive linear barriers (‘Great Walls’) by several Chinese dynasties (and other polities in the pre-modern world)? What were the political preconditions for such monumental works? How, if at all, did wall construction relate to climatic changes and ecological conditions? These issues were not addressed properly in the past, first and foremost because scholars have assumed that ‘Great Walls’ were fortified border lines designed to stop military incursions. The proposed research will suggest novel hypotheses, never previously considered, and examine them using advanced recovery and analytical methods, integrating archaeological, historical, environmental, and geographical data.

Research Hypothesis and Expected Breakthroughs 
The construction of long-walls is not a Chinese phenomenon, as they are also known from other ancient civilizations throughout the Old World. Notable examples are the Roman limes and the Sasanian Gorgān and Tammīsheh walls. However, the most extensive examples in time, space and amount of labour invested in their construction, are the walls built by Chinese empires. The so-called ‘Great Wall of China’ is, in fact, a series of walls constructed by different dynasties at different times. Each of those walls extends over hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of kilometres and is accompanied by auxiliary structures (camps, beacon towers, etc.) and roads. Estimates of the amount of work required to build these walls vary, but it was suggested, for example, that it took a working force of at least 300,000 men five years to construct the earliest, and by no means the most extensive, Chinese wall system. 
While Chinese dynasties constructed the most extensive wall-systems the world has ever seen, many dynasties in China did not construct long-walls. Apart from the construction of several different walls by pre-dynastic states of the Warring States period (481-221 BCE), long-walls were constructed during four main episodes over the last two millennia: the Qin and Western Han dynasties (the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE); the Northern Wei and Northern Qi dynasties (5th and 6th centuries CE); the Liao-Jin dynasties (11th or 12th and 13th centuries); and the Ming dynasty (15th and 16th centuries). 
A traditional view describes the ‘Great Wall’ as a symbolic and real demarcation of a cultural-ecological line that separates two distinct ways of life: the pastoral-nomadism of the Steppe and desert areas, on the one hand, and sedentary agricultural societies, on the other. Consequently, modern scholarship identifies the walls as a fortified border intended to stop nomadic armies from invading China. This paradigm of Chinese long-walls (including the MWS) as military installations has never been challenged, although disagreement regarding the motivation 
for ‘Great Wall’ construction exists between scholars who see them as defensive structures against the aggression of nomadic tribes and those who argue that ‘Great Walls’ were part of the Chinese imperial expansion and conquest of lands previously inhabited by nomads. And yet, a superficial examination of the MWS suggests that it is at odds with many of the fundamental assumptions of the accepted paradigm. For example, the MWS is located deep in the Steppe zone (and, in a few of its southern parts, inside the desert area), and does not demarcate any cultural-ecological border. Moreover, although we do not know who constructed this wall, the two main candidates are the Liao and the Jin dynasties, both of which were founded by nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples, and subsequently their concept of empire had more to do with control over people, many of them nomads, rather than forming clearly defined land borders. In addition, a preliminary analysis based on pilot field work and GIS analysis suggests that the location and structure of the wall and the auxiliary structures associated with it are not compatible with what we might expect from a military installation that was meant to defend the border against invading armies. 
Based on this preliminary information, the research hypothesis of the proposed project is that the MWS, and probably many of the other episodes of ‘Great Wall’ construction in Chinese history, were built to monitor and sometimes stop movements of people rather than armies. It is highly plausible that the walls were built during periods of large-scale movements of nomadic people towards more central areas of the empire. An additional hypothesis, as to why such control was needed, suggests that extreme climatic anomalies, especially concentrations of cold spells and droughts, must have affected the fragile ecology of the Steppe. 
The devastating effects of these climatic phenomena, known as dzud in Mongolian, on communities of nomadic pastoralists, are well documented in historical and modern periods. For example, between 2000-2002, and again in the winter of 2009-2010, intense cold conditions caused the death of 20% to 40% of all livestock, causing mass migration of herders to the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar. Whereas sporadic and local occurrences of such events are common, a concentration of extreme events over a period of ten to twenty years must have an acute socio-economic impact. The 10th-14th centuries were a period of climatic instability, known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly. 
Although this global phenomenon did not have the same effect on the local ecologies of different places throughout Eurasia, recent research has started to flesh out the ways in which it catalysed economic crisis, socio-political unrest, and large-scale migration in the Mediterranean and West Asia, as well as in East Asia. If these hypotheses (or some of them) are confirmed for the MWS, it will change our understanding of the complex history of the region during the centuries prior to Chinggis Khan’s rise to power. These hypotheses may not account for all the episodes of ‘Great Wall’ construction in China. For example, the wall constructed by the Ming dynasty is much more massive than that of earlier periods. Although it was not successful in defending the Ming, there are historic accounts of it being a formidable military obstacle. However, the model developed by this research can serve to explain some of the other episodes of ‘Great Wall’ construction in Chinese history and change our perception of the conditions that triggered wall building in China, the purposes for which these walls were built, and their function. Understanding the background and reasons for wall construction will thus contribute to a better understanding of the decision and policy-making of Chinese dynasties, and of the dynastic system more generally. Such insights could be applicable to the analysis of long-walls of other civilizations. For example, the famous Hadrian’s Wall, which is seen by many as the fortified border line par excellence, has a gate every Roman mile (1,479 m). It is suggested that creating so many openings in the wall was intended to enable, but also to supervise, the civilian movement of traders and, perhaps, transhumance.

翻译考点：
考点1：“Roman limes”必须译为“罗马帝国界墙”或者“罗马帝国长城”，因为这是固定翻译，译文选取一种即可，保持译文一致性
考点2：“Gorgān and Tammīsheh walls”必须译为“戈尔干长城和塔米舍长城”，固定景点翻译
考点3：“pre-dynastic states”推荐译为“封建王朝形成之前的政权”，不能简单翻译成“前王朝时期”，会容易被非专业读者误解称为古埃及王朝形成之前的时期
考点4：“dzud ” 推荐译为“严冬灾害期”
考点5：“Roman mile”必须译为“罗里”，计数单位的固定译法