Wenxin Zhang
Thesis title: Trauma and Interpersonal Violence of Late Prehistoric Semi-Nomadic Pastoralists: A Bioarchaeological Study on Skeletal Trauma in 800-100 BCE Turpan, Northwestern China
PhD Archaeology
- School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Contact details
- Email: wenxin.zhang@zju.edu.cn
PhD supervisors:
Background
I received my bachelor's degree in Museology in Sichuan University, China. I graduated from Jilin University, China with a Master's degree in Archaeology in 2018. My master's thesis was focused on dental wear and oral health of an Early Iron Age semi-nomadic population in Xinjiang, China. I conducted my PhD research on skeletal trauma and interpersonal violence in Early Iron Age Turpan, Xinjiang, and received the degree in 2025.
Research summary
Human Osteoarchaeology; Paleopathology; Bioarchaeology
Trauma, bioarchaeology of violence, disability and care
- S. Newman, W.X. Zhang. Anthropology: Skeletal pathology and antemortem trauma. In J. Payne-James, R.W. Byard (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine (Third Edition). Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2025: 285-293.
- W.X. Zhang, A.Q. Wang, Z.N. Zou, T. Jakob, Y.M. Zhu, Q.C. Zhang, & Q. Wang. Added hardship to nomadic life: Leg impairment in an early Iron Age individual from northwestern China (ca. 375 BCE) with special references to lower limb splint use. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2023, 15(10): 150.
- A.Q. Wang, W.X. Zhang, Z.N. Zou, L. Wang, Q.C. Zhang. A study on the Bronze-Early Iron Age’s mother-infant joint burials from the Jiayi Cemetery, Turpan City, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2022, 41 (1): 1-10. (In Chinese)
- W.X. Zhang, A.Q. Wang, Z.N. Zou, T. Jakob, P. Chen, N. Alifujiang, Q.C. Zhang, Q. Wang. The Impaired Nomad: A bioarchaeological study on an Early Iron Age case of knee ankylosis from the Jiaerkenjiaga Cemetery, northwestern China. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2022, 32 (2): 493-508.
- W.X. Zhang, Q. Zhang, K. McSweeney, T. Han, X.Y. Man, S.Y. Yang, L. Wang, H. Zhu, Q.C. Zhang, Q. Wang. Violence in the first millennium BCE Eurasian Steppe: Cranial trauma in three Turpan Basin populations from Xinjiang, China. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2020 (175): 81-94.