European Man Found in Ancient Chinese Tomb, Study Reveals

National Geographic ^ | 5-24-07 | Stefan Lovgren

[Renfield]

Human remains found in a 1,400-year-old Chinese tomb belonged to a man of European origin, DNA evidence shows.

Chinese scientists who analyzed the DNA of the remains say the man, named Yu Hong, belonged to one of the oldest genetic groups from western Eurasia.

The tomb, in Taiyuan in central China, marks the easternmost spot where the ancient European lineage has been found (see China map).

"The [genetic group] to which Yu Hong belongs is the first west Eurasian special lineage that has been found in the central part of ancient China," said Zhou Hui, head of the DNA laboratory of the College of Life Science at Jilin University in Changchun, China.

Hui led the research, which will be published in the July 7 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Mixed Cultures

The tomb containing Yu Hong's remains has been undergoing excavation since 1999.

It also contains the remains of a woman of East Asian descent.

The burial style and multicolor reliefs found in the tomb are characteristic of Central Asia at the time, experts say.

The people pictured in the reliefs, however, have European traits, such as straight noses and deep-set eyes.

"The mixture of different cultures made it difficult to confirm the origin of this couple, and the anthropologists also could not determine the race of these remains, owing to the partial missing skulls," Hui said.

To learn more about the history of the couple, Hui's team studied their mitochondrial DNA, a type of DNA inherited exclusively from the mother that can be analyzed to track human evolution.

The research shows that Yu Hong arrived in Taiyuan approximately 1,400 years ago and most probably married a local woman.

Carvings found in the tomb depict scenes from his life, showing him to have been a chieftain of the Central Asian people who had settled in China during the Sui dynasty (A.D. 580 to 618).

The carvings suggest that his grandfather and father lived in northwest China's Xinjiang region and were nobles of the Yu country for which he is named.

Yu Hong died in A.D. 592, at the age of 59. His wife, who died in A.D. 598, was buried in the same grave.

Ancient Gene Flow

Scientists are using DNA to reconstruct ancient population movements in Asia and to determine when Europeans arrived there.

(See an atlas of ancient human migration.)

"The existence of European lineages in China was already known to us, but these lineages are mainly concentrated in Xinjiang province," Hui said.

"In the central part of China, west-Eurasian lineages are seldom found in modern populations and have never been found in an ancient individual."

Austin Hughes is an expert in molecular evolution at the University of South Carolina.

The discovery in China, he said, "shows that there has always been gene flow between human populations."

"I think it's possible that these types of genetic studies can give a clearer picture of human movements and human gene flow," Hughes added.

(Read related story: "China's Earliest Modern Human Found" [April 3, 2007].)

The DNA studies can also shed light on marriage patterns, said Frederika Kaestle of the Indiana Molecular Biology Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington.

"In many cases there are no other methods that allow us to gain access to information on geographic origin or relatedness of individuals in archaeological contexts," Kaestle said.

However, she added, it is impossible to draw conclusions about population movement into the region based on this one DNA sample.

"Was it just this one man [who moved into the area], or was it a large family including this man, or was it an even larger group of people from his ancestral population?" she asked.

Overall, she said, "the study of ancient mitochondrial DNA, as well as other genomic variations, holds great promise for enhancing our understanding of human prehistory."

"This is a nice example of how genetic and archaeological approaches can be combined fruitfully."

[CarrotAndStick]

I wouldn’t trust that “centum” / “satem” theory too much. Primarily because numeral systems are easily exchanged via trade, in contrast to language itself. In several Indian languages, 100 is pronounced “shaw-nth” or “scha-uwth”, and the number 8 is “aahtt”.

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

“That explains all the red-headed Jews. ;’)”

My dad was blonde-red as a young boy but his hair turned more brown as he got older.

I had the National Geographic Genographic Project done - I’m an R1A, which is the Ashkenazic Levite marker, making me most likely one of a small percentage of European Jews (though a large % of European Levites, a minority) who are descended from the Khazars.

In previous history to that, the gene traveled through the Hindu Kush region.... according to the Genographic project.

[afraidfortherepublic]

The ranks of famous full-sized terra cotta soldiers found in XIAN contain figures that certainly looked Caucasian to me — perhaps Turks. I’ve forgotten that dates attributed to them, but there are from the tomb of the 1st Emperor of China.

[Cacique]

CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!

Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them.

STOP AMNESTY NOW!! WE CAN DO IT!!

The best way to stop Shamnesty

[Cacique]

OOPS! WRONG THREAD!

[Fedora]

Thanks! Interesting. I see the Keraits were converted to Nestorianism in the 10th-11th centuries, so apparently Nestorian influence in the region persisted quite a while:

Kerait

According to the Syrian Bar Hebraeus, the Kerait were converted to Nestorianism, a sect of Christianity, about the year 1008.

SNIP

During the 10th and 11th centuries, due to Nestorian missionary activities, several Turkic tribes were entirely or to a great extent Christian, notably the Kerait, Uyghur, Naiman and Merkit. They were a cluster of hunting tribes east and south of Lake Baikal. The principal tribes evangelized there by the Nestorians were the Naiman, the Merkit, and the Kerait. The Kerait capital at this time was Karakorum, where Marco Polo later found a church.

It seems that the Gospel was taken to those tribes by Christian merchants. An account of the conversion of the Kerait is given by the 13th century Jacobite historian Gregory Bar Hebraeus. According to Hebraeus, in early 11th century, a Kerait king lost his way while hunting in the high mountains. When he had abandoned all hope, a saint appeared in a vision and said, "If you will believe in Christ, I will lead you lest you perish." He returned home safely. When he met Christian merchants, he remembered the vision and asked them about their faith. At their suggestion, he sent a message to the Metropolitan of Merv for priests and deacons to baptize him and his tribe. As a result of the mission that followed, the king and 20000 of his people were baptized. (R. Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1970, p. 191. See also Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia pp. 400-401.)

The Prester John legend was connected to the Christian rulers of the Kerait ("The history of this race of Christian kings, afterward so celebrated in Europe under the name of Prester John, is properly referable to the two succeeding centuries." (Asahel Grant, op. cit., p. 376)). At one point in the legend, Prester John was explicitly identified with Wang Khan.

[Fedora]

Nestorian Christianity, shut off from its mother land by the rise of the Mohammedan powers in between, proved unable to resist the inroads of ignorance and superstition and changing political affairs. It degenerated and disappeared.

It may also have been absorbed into Taoism. Somewhat earlier than the period we're discussing, Manichaeanism's Zoroastrian relative had been absorbed into the "Five Bushels of Rice" school of Taoism founded by Chang Ling. This may have set the stage for the later reception of Nestorianism.

Taoism Throughout history

The leader Chang Ling took the title “Heavenly Teacher” in 200 C.E. He created a dynasty of high priests who manipulated Taoism to support a superstitious doctrine of magic and mysticism.18 Seizing higher power as a religious leader, he pioneered a merging of Taoism and Zoroastrianism into a system called Five Bushels of Rice Taoism. Eventually this developed into a society based on Mazdaism, a Zoroastrian sect, where every believer was charged five bushels of rice.19 Although the believers followed the basic Zoroastrian worship format, they worshipped different gods: the Tao instead of Ahura-Mazda, and the various Chinese folk gods in place of the Persian Angels.20 Three hundred years later, the philosopher Honen moved away from Mazdaism and combined Taoism with Buddhism. This simplified religion he created became known as the Pure Land School, or Amidaism. Gradually, however, Taoism again became tied to magic, and it failed as a religion.21 Today, only its original philosophies survive and there are very few followers of Taoism, mostly found in Taiwan.22

[Nucluside]

No. Always right thread.

[Nucluside]

LA?

[Verginius Rufus]

There may be some numbers that get borrowed (as English did with "second") but I think the basic numbers tend to stay the same since each language has its own set (I think there are cases of larger numbers like 100 or 1,000 being borrowed). Anyway centum and satem are just illustrations of a pattern which is much more widespread and doesn't involve just words for numbers.

Usually the connections are not obvious if you look at the words used today, but linguists have worked out many of the patterns which show up in a consistent way. English raven is cognate with Greek korax or Latin corvus--the Anglo-Saxon form of the word started with an h which later disappeared, which is another case of a K sound in Greek and Latin corresponding to an H in the Germanic languages. Another case is P/F--Greek pater alongside English father but also pente alongside five or Latin piscis alongside English fish.

[Salamander]

All your tomb are belong to us.

[ken21]

no doubt a richard nixon prototype.

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[blam]

Haplogroups R1b, I and R1a
(I'm R1b)

?

The three groups of humans had taken refuge for so long that their DNA had naturally picked up mutations, and consequently can be defined into different haplogroups. As they spread from these refuges, Haplogroups R1b, I and R1a propagated across Europe.

- Haplogroup R1b is common on the western Atlantic coast as far as Scotland.
- Haplogroup I is common across central Europe and up into Scandinavia.
- Haplogroup R1a is common in eastern Europe and has also spread across into central Asia and as far as India and Pakistan.

These three major haplogroups account for approx 80% of Europe's present-day population.

[blam]

[blam]

Thanks for the ping, I've been out of town and late to the thread.

On The Presence Of Non-Chinese At Anyang

[blam]

R1b DNA migration map

[PuTiDaMo]

Apparently this person was a diplomat who got around a lot. Although they did not really need DNA evidence to know that he was a foreigner ... his tomb depicted his life story and foreign origins quite clearly.

[PuTiDaMo]

“I read some years ago that mummified bodies found buried on the desert plains of Mongolia were found wrapped in Scottish plaid or tartan.”

Do you mean the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang ( http://theculturedtraveler.com/Archives/FEB2006/Takla_Makan.htm ). That’s more in China than Mongolia.

[PuTiDaMo]

“The ranks of famous full-sized terra cotta soldiers found in XIAN contain figures that certainly looked Caucasian to me — perhaps Turks. I’ve forgotten that dates attributed to them, but there are from the tomb of the 1st Emperor of China.”

Around the 220’s BC.

I would be interested in seeing what those look like. All the ones I’ve seen so far look pretty East Asian ( http://images.google.com/images?um=1&tab=wi&hl=en&q=terracotta+warrior )