The mummy of an infant excavated from the cemetery in north China.
The mummy of an infant excavated from the cemetery in north China.
I hope we’re spared a Bill Clinton visit to see these mummies.
Clearly not Asian, then. ;-)
Human Origins | Archaeology
The Mummies of Xinjiang
http://discovermagazine.com/1994/apr/themummiesofxinj359
In the dry hills of the central Asian province, archeologists have unearthed more than 100 corpses that are as much as 4,000 years old, astonishingly well preserved—and caucasian.
By Evan Hadingham
EXCERPT:
Intriguingly, evidence of a long-extinct language belonging to the Indo-European family does exist in central Asia. This language, known as Tocharian, is recorded in manuscripts from the eighth century A.D., and solid evidence for its existence can be found as far back as the third century. Tocharian inscriptions from this period are also found painted in caves in the foothills of the mountains west of Ürümqi, along with paintings of swashbuckling knights wielding long swords. The knights are depicted with full red beards and European faces. Could the Xinjiang people have been their ancestors, speaking an early version of Tocharian? “My guess is that they would have been speaking some form of Indo-European,” comments Don Ringe, a historical linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, “but whether it was an early form of Tocharian or some other branch of the family, such as Indo-Iranian, we may never know for sure.”
Perhaps a highly distinctive language would help explain why the Xinjiang people’s distinctive appearance and culture persisted over so many centuries. Eventually they might well have assimilated with the local population—the major ethnic group in the area today, the Uygur, includes people with unusually fair hair and complexions. That possibility will soon be investigated when Mair, Francalacci, and their Chinese colleagues compare DNA from ancient mummy tissue with blood and hair samples from local people.
Besides the riddle of their identity, there is also the question of what these fair-haired people were doing in a remote desert oasis. Probably never wealthy enough to own chariots, they nevertheless had wagons and well-tailored clothes. Were they mere goat and sheep farmers? Or did they profit from or even control prehistoric trade along the route that later became the Silk Road? If so, they probably helped spread the first wheels and certain metalworking skills into China.
“Ultimately I think our project may end up having tremendous implications for the origins of Chinese civilization,” Mair reflects. “For all their incredible inventiveness, the ancient Chinese weren’t cut off from the rest of the world, and influences didn’t just flow one way, from China westward.”
Over here a mummy needs help..
The lost tribes of Israel?
ping
.
Kennewick realtive?
Very interesting. And strange.
http://www.nd.edu/~nsl/Lectures/phys178/pdf/chap3_3.pdf
DNA sampling was done on eleven mummies. Only 1 was allowed to be exported for testing and showed Haplogroup H largely (40%) associated with people of European origin (15% Near East population.)
I find the textile information very interesting.
http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/21723/tartan.html
Origins
“Textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European Tocharian graves in Western China has shown similarities to the Iron Age civilizations of Europe dating from 800 BC, including woven twill and tartan patterns strikingly similar to Celtic tartans from Northwest Europe. Tartan patterns have been used in Scottish, Irish, Northumbrian (north east English) and Welsh weaving for centuries....”
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Tartan
“Origins
“Today tartan may be mostly associated with Scotland, however the earliest evidence of tartan is found far afield from the British Isles. According to the textile historian E. J. W. Barber, the Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture...Also, textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European graves in Western China has shown it to be similar to the Iron Age....Tartan-like leggings were found on the “Cherchen Man”, a 3,000 year-old mummy found in the Taklamakan Desert in western China. The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to 200 CE...”
The Tocharian corpses are 4000 year old. Textile analysis indicates that their tartans are similar to Celtic ones of a century later. Could these folk be the ancestors of the Celts?
A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets
The Sand Dune Forgotten By Time (Caucasian Mummies In China - More)
Obviously patrons of a sex tourism company gone bad.
http://news.scotsman.com/getEdFrontImage.aspx?ImageID=456162
http://news.scotsman.com/news/DNA-experts—reveal-China39s.6168665.jp