Posted on 05/26/2007 5:45:03 AM PDT by 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."
I do not have a picture of the ones that looked Caucasion. I visited Xian in 1983, not too many years after it was first opened to the public. I was amazed at the statues and how many of them were spitting images of people that I had known over the years. (I grew up in California and had many Chinese friends and acquaintences.)
In addition there were two or three that looked Caucasion — curly beards, different uniforms, etc. I thought they looked like Turks, or eastern Europeans. They did not have the typical Mongolian eyes.
Only a small part of the tomb was open to the public at that time. There have been many more discoveries since then. But you are right when you say that most of the images that are public are the same warriors, depicted over and over again. Intruth there are many different warriors, each one distinct.
“Chinnghis Quan”
Quan
Khan
Cohen
makes you wonder...
########
Fascinating stuff. Have you ever heard anything about the ancient Sumerians who apparently were quite warlike as a race? They traveled from from lower Asia and theory holds they ended up somewhere in Europe and an area of Japan. The Japanes tribe was known as the Sumeri or Sammuri.
I saw this on an archeology website one time. Have you heard anything like this?
“Fascinating stuff. Have you ever heard anything about the ancient Sumerians who apparently were quite warlike as a race? They traveled from from lower Asia and theory holds they ended up somewhere in Europe and an area of Japan. The Japanes tribe was known as the Sumeri or Sammuri.”
My understanding is that we’re not precisely sure how what the Sumerians called themselves was pronounced, so I am skeptical.
However this is an interesting website - that ancient Israelites might have made their way to Japan.
http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracame.htm
This one too - relevent excerpt:
http://www.torahlearningcenter.com/jhq/question292.html
For one, a certain Japanese mythology closely resembles the Biblical chronology: The Patriarch of the Japanese nation comes down from heaven, in place of “the other” while he is preparing. [Jacob received the birthright instead of Esau, and the blessing while Esau was preparing.] The Patriarch falls in love with a beautiful woman but her father refuses unless he marries her older, less desirable sister. [Lavan prevented Jacob from marrying Rachel until he married Leah first.] The Patriarch and his desired wife have a son who is bullied by his older brother and forced to the country of a sea god. [Jacob and Rachel had Joseph who is sold by his older brothers to Egypt on the Nile.] There, he attains power with which he troubles his older brother concerning famine, but eventually forgives him. [Joseph rose to power and tried his brothers regarding the famine until he forgave them.] In the meantime, the Patriarch marries the daughter of the sea god, having a son whose 4 th son conquers Japan. [Joseph married Osnat, daughter of Potifar, and had Ephraim, whose 4 th son Joshua conquered Israel.]
Also, the Shinto festival of Ontohsai resembles the Sacrifice of Isaac. In the Biblical event, Abraham leads his son up Mount Moria and binds him as a sacrifice on a wooden altar. While the knife is in Abraham’s hand, an angel intervenes and instructs him to offer a ram in Isaac’s stead. Similarly, in the Shinto festival, a boy is led to the top of a mountain called “Moriya-san”. He is tied to a wooden beam on a bamboo carpet as a priest symbolically approaches with a knife. Then a messenger appears, the boy is released and a sacrifice provided by the “god of moriya” is offered in his stead.
Furthermore, a Shinto shrine resembles the ancient Jewish Temple. The entrance to the shrine is in the East while the shrine is in the West. There is a laver near the entrance for washing hands and feet. The shrine is comprised of a courtyard, an inner holy section, and an innermost holy of holies. The holy of holies is elevated above the holy section by stairs. Worshipers pray in front of the inner holy section, but only the priest can enter the holy of holies, and only at special times.
A Japanese Omikoshi, resembles the Ark of Covenant. It is similar in size, overlain with gold, with gold winged figures on top. It is carried on the shoulders with poles, while accompanied with song and dance. The carriers must immerse themselves beforehand, and a special ceremony whereby the bearers carry the ark through a river is reminiscent of the Biblical description of the Jews carrying the ark through the Jordan river on their way into Israel.
There are other similarities as well. The Japanese Shinto priest’s robe often has cords hanging from its corners, resembling Jewish tzitzit. Also, a certain type of Shinto priest called a yamabushi wears what’s called a token, a small black box on the forehead between the eyes, tied with a black cord behind the head. This closely resembles Jewish tefillin. Interestingly, a Shinto legend tells of a ninja who sought a certain yamabushi named Tengu in order to receive supernatural powers. Tengu gave him a “tora-no-maki”, a scroll of the torah, which gave him special powers. Also, mizura, an old Samurai hairstyle resembles Jewish side locks. A statue of a Japanese Samurai dating from the 5th century shows long, curly locks of hair in front of the ears.
Thanks for the posting and the two links. I look forward to reading these. Seems like quite a parallel in the cultures.
My cousin is married to a Mongolian.
Plenty of them believe some of their ancestors were Caucazoid and came from the western steppes
and they speak of tombs like that in the Tarim Basin
btw...she appears to be an excelent wife....very much at home down South
|||||The Japanes tribe was known as the Sumeri or Sammuri.|||||
As far as I know, the ancient Japanese were known as “Wa” or “Yamato”.
It sounds similar to “samurai”, which is where I presume the association comes, but “samurai” has its own Japanes language etymology, with no relation to any particular tribal name.
Incidentally, some Korean ultranationalist revisionists have attempted to claim that their ancestors travelled southwest and became the Sumerian people, based on similarly tenuous evidence.
These are but a frightful few of the blunders made by determined amateurs in the minefield of comparitive anthropology.
Very interesting link. I bookmarked it.
How interesting. How did they meet?
Through her uncle who took him there. Her uncle had been here for about 15 years and worked with him....auto parts warehouse.
He took him over to see China and Mongolia and there you are.
She is very pretty....great hair...taller than I expected...like 5’6” and sorta leggy...again unexpected...I figured short/squatty
and very family oriented and responsible....about 33, he’s 40.
they are lucky to have her, her southern english is pretty good.....someone raised her right you can tell
the deep south must be quite a contrast to the steppes
She must be very interesting to know. My friend’s daughter spent 2 years in Kyrgyztan with the Peace Corps teaching English. She really loved it. I know the Kyrgyze aren’t Mongolians, but they are not far off either! They enjoy many of the same pursuits — horse games, et al.
My friend and her husband went to Bishkek to see their daughter during her tour and the accounts of their trip were fascinating — especially the Kyrgyze picnic her daughter’s hosts took them to. A wild ride in an ancient car with no tires over a non-road. When they arrived at their destination, the hosts opened the trunk and removed a live goat (to my friend’s amazement who hadn’t realized it was there) — slaughtered it on the spot — and strung him up over a fire. Lunch was later. LOL.
Thanks for the Samurai input.
This may answer the question as to who is buried in General Gau’s tomb.
[[The Samurai And The Ainu]]
I don’t quite see the relevance to the etymology of the word “samurai”.
A excellent book on the subject:
"A book that completetly changes the established and conventional view of prehistory by relocating the Lost Eden - the world's 1st civilisation - to SouthEast Asia. At the end of the Ice Age, SouthEast Asia formed a continent twice the size of India, which included Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia and Borneo. The South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand and the Java sea, which were all dry, formed the connecting parts of the continent. Geologically, this half sunken continent is the Shunda shelf or Sundaland. In the Eden in the East Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward the astonishing argument that here in southeast Asia - rather than in Mesopotamia where it is usually placed - was the lost civilisation that fertilised the Great cultures of the Middle East 6 thousand years ago. He produces evidence from ethnography, archaeology, oceanography, from creation stories, myths and sagas and from linguistics and DNA analysis, to argue that this founder civilisation was destroyed by a catastrophic flood, caused by a rapid rise in the sea level at the end of the last ice age."
2008 Bump.
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