Posted on 07/06/2004 11:02:03 AM PDT by blam
Ancient European remains discovered in Qinghai
www.chinaview.cn 2004-07-06 15:32:53
XINING, July 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Archeologists confirmed that the human skeletons discovered this May in northwest China's Qinghai Province belonged to three Europeans who lived in China over 1,900 years ago.
"The physical characteristics of the bones showed it is a typical European race," said Wang Minghui, an expert with the archeological institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The skeletons were spotted at Zhongchuan Town of the province's eastern most Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County.
Since 2002, archeologists have unearthed nine tombs of Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) at a construction site of a brickfield in the town, but it was not until this May that they felt the skeletons in two tombs "very special", said Ren Xiaoyan, deputy director if the provincial archeological institute, who added they invited Wang, who specializes in human bone identification, to take part in the study on the findings.
Qinghai is on the southern section of the world-known land trade corridor -- the Silk Road, linking China with Central and Western Asia and to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean begins in the country's northwest and runs 7,000 kilometers.
Serving as an important bridge for the economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West, the area, which the Silk Road covered in China, used to see throngs of Indian, Persian, Arabic, Greek and Roman people.
Ren said the tomb shape, the burial articles and the way they were put in the tomb are all typical in Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), which proved the three westerners had lived here for a long time and were accustomed to local traditions and customs.
"Although so far, we have been not sure of the country the three Europeans came from and there might be a large number of such 'westerners' living here at the ancient time," said Ren.
Such European skeletons have only been revealed in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a neighboring region which is to the northwest of Qinghai, so the discovery this time is of great importance for the study of the ancient society in Qinghai, said Wang. Enditem
Jews have a long history in China. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/chinesejews1.html
But you gotta wonder how they kept kosher. :)
Lots & lots of scaled fish?
(/sarcasm)...feel better now?
He may be referring to the Bushmen (Khoisan), the speakers of a 'click' language. They have some Oriental features and their children have 'mongoloid spots.' They also have some physical features that are unique from all other humans.
Do you?
Sorry to hear that Doc...Bismarck, Demons Rule!
I just moved states and am getting settled in...
Maybe I should write what Lazamataz wrote as his tagline "proudly posting without reading the article since 1999!"
afrocentric types embrace the erroneous doctrine of 'me tooism and greatness by association' same reasoning why these articles also frequently discussed on websites like SF,etc.
Those all look like Indo-European languages. Do they call them Aryan where you are from? Never took many linguistic classes, so maybe I am mixed up here.
I always thought of the Aryans as that group who swept through the Indian subcontinent pushing the Dravidians towards the south and east.
Here is an interesting diagram of the Indo-European languages. Looks to be the same list as yours, but I like the way it diagrams the 'distance' from the proto-language (if you can call it that).
http://www.bartleby.com/61/indoeuro.html
GO BRAVES!!!
Yeah, we pumped those dogs at every turn Doc.
It could be argued that China is now totally Christian.
A cogent point I neglected to reply with.
These 'Celtic-like' people were in the area prior to any Iranian or Indian tribes, they did come later though.
"Also, I've read much speculation that the Mandans may be the remnants of the Prince Madoc (Welsh) group that came to the US in 1170AD...Lately I've read 540AD."
I think that story belongs in "Chariots of the Gods" or Atlantis.
A number of recent books have theorized that the Americas may have been settled in remote times - post glacial - by separate waves of settlers from Asia, possibly western Europe and even Africa who melded to produce the modern Amerindian, but the last waves of immigration from eastern Asian Mongolian Type people predominated. Contemporary Amerindian Languages fall into three groups: the mainstream Amerindian languages, Athabaskan languages and the Eskimo-Innuit Languages - in order of probable arrival from Asia. Some linguists believe that more than 11,000 years was necessary for the degree of diversity noted in the non-Athabaskan, non-Eskimo type languages to have developed.
They also note that the number of different Ameridian linguistic families increases as you go from east to west across the North American continent which tends to indicate that the original dipersal point was somewhere along the west coast of North America.
There have been other studies done on blood types linking Amerindians predominantly to eastern Asians with one possible blood type found in western Europe - and NOT derived from recent intermarriage.
I read a recent book about a theory that eastern Asians, possibly linked to the Ainu type people, sailed around the north Pacific during Glacial times and actually made it further south prior to the glacial retreats beginning around 11,000 B.C. There was an ongoing argument for some time between the pre-Clovis and Clovis theorists, but there have been pretty convincing finds in South America and eastern U.S. to indicate that there were modern human types in the Americas well before the Clovis culture.
As for historic visits prior to Columbus, I haven't read anything serious other than indications that Norsemen were clearly here in the 1000's. probably from Greenland and definitely in Newfoundland where a Norse settlement has been actually unearthed.
www.chinaview.cn 2004-01-12 20:52:43
CHONGQING, Jan. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Archaeologists in southwest China's Chongqing municipality have unearthed more than 20 pieces of brick reliefs from a tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 A.D.-220 A.D.).
Lin Bizhong, a noted archaeologist with the Chongqing MunicipalArchaeological Team, said this was the first time that bricks withmolded designs had been unearthed in Chongqing.
Previously, such tomb bricks had been excavated from Sichuan province, southwest China, and have been included as relics under state key protection.
Lin acknowledged that the brick-and-stone-structured tomb, from which brick reliefs were unearthed, had been robbed, so they did not find anything valuable in the tomb besides the bricks.
Designs on the bricks include horse-drawn carriages accompaniedby honor guards, the image of Fuxi, or the sun god in ancient China, and images of high-nosed and hollow-eyed people, who might be from varied ethnic groups or foreigners.
According to experts, designs of horse-drawn carriages with honor guards indicated that the tomb owner was of high social status, bricks with the image of Fuxi were important materials forstudying religion and culture at that time, and the images of foreigners reflected cultural exchanges between the East and West in Eastern Han dynasty.
Moreover, archaeologists also found traces of red color on these bricks and held that might be traces of color painting. End item
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