A joint international team has discovered a rare archive of carbonized wooden slips at a remote desert outpost in China's Xinjiang region. Dated to the early Han Dynasty, the documents comprise a "Courier Archive" detailing the daily logistics of trade caravans and military patrols along the burgeoning Silk Road. The slips provide a granular look at the ancient postal system, including records of horse fodder distributions, weather conditions, and security reports regarding nomadic movements.
The site, preserved by the arid environment, also yielded fragments of early paper and silk-wrapped bundles of official correspondence. Historians are particularly excited by mentions of 'Western trade envoys,' which could clarify the specific ethnicities and goods moving across the Tarim Basin in the 2nd century BCE. The findings prove that the central government maintained rigorous administrative control over the frontier well before the peak of the Tang Dynasty.