The bit about Elizabeth Barber and the map puzzles me as much now as ever. I've read her book, and she puts the origin of these folks near Northeast Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, which makes perfect sense historically, linguistically, and based on the archeology.
The Tarim Basin mummies are about 4000 years old. Celtic settlements in Salzberg and all that is later.
"The bit about Elizabeth Barber and the map puzzles me as much now as ever. I've read her book, and she puts the origin of these folks near Northeast Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, which makes perfect sense historically, linguistically, and based on the archeology." What puzzles you? I believe they were refugees from the Black Sea Flood (Noah's Flood?) in 5,600BC.
"The Tarim Basin mummies are about 4000 years old. Celtic settlements in Salzberg and all that is later."
Some of the mummies are even older and they spoke the extinct Indo-European language 'Tocharian.'
Barber, in her book, The Mummies Of Urumchi, states that the fabrics, material, style and manufacturing technique are exactly the same as those discovered at Hallstadt, Austria. The folks at Hallstadt are much younger though
The best book I've found on this subject is one by Victor Mair and JP Malloy titled, The Tarim Mummies.