Posted on 08/16/2006 9:16:37 AM PDT by blam
On the Presence of Non-Chinese at Anyang
by Kim Hayes
It has now become clear that finds of chariot remains, metal knives and axes of northern provenance, and bronze mirrors of western provenance in the tombs of Anyang indicate that the Shang had at least indirect contact with people who were familiar with these things. Who were these people? Where did they live? When did they arrive?
Following the discovery of the Tarim Mummies, we now know that the population of the earliest attested cultures of what is present-day Xinjiang were of northwestern or western derivation. According to the craniometric studies of Ran Kangxin, these people can be divided into three distinct types.
The first group to arrive are held to have come from the north because the cranial measurements of the surviving skulls of this type are affinial with the skulls of the Afanasevo culture in particular, which was located in the Sayan-Altai/North Mongolia area, and with the skull types of steppe people living much further to the west. This group is called "Proto-European" by Mair and Mallory, and it can be dated to have arrived in Xinjiang about 1800 B.C.E. or somewhat earlier.
It has been suggested that this group may have been a relatively small group of Afanasevo/Tocharian refugees fleeing to the south, away from Indo-Iranian expansion arriving from regions west and southwest of the Sayan-Altai.
If we accept the refugee classification of these people, it helps us explain the geographical position in the southeast Tarim of the Qawrighul and Yanbulaq Proto-Europeans. It was as far away from everywhere as you could get-it was a safe place. This is important and may help us to understand much else that happened to these people prior to their arrival in Xinjiang, as well as what happened to them after this time.
For the period c. 2000-c. 1000 B.C.E.-which saw the emergence, development, expansion, and culmination of early Chinese civilization in the Erlitou, Erligang and related cultures, Anyang cultural continuum-there is no extant evidence of contact between the people of the eastern Tarim and the people of the emerging Chinese polity.
It is only from around c. 1000 B.C.E. that we have evidence for the arrival in Xinjiang of the two remaining types of caucasoid, the Pamir Ferghana and Indo-Afghan types. It is thought that the Pamir Ferghana type entered northwestern Xinjiang from contiguous regions to the west of the Tian Shan c. 1000 B.C.E. The Indo-Afghans are thought to have entered southwestern Xinjiang from Bactria somewhat later.
A clear illustration of "the three types of human cranial variation according to Han Kang xin," is provided on p. 238 of The Tarim Mummies and on p. 566 of The Bronze Age.
Given that there is no evidence to indicate interaction between the caucasoids of Xinjiang and their Han neighbors to the east, it is very unlikely that remains of any non-Chinese found at Anyang would have come from Xinjiang. This proposition is strengthened by the fact that the Pamir Ferghana and Indo-Afghan types are held to have entered Western Xinjiang around the time of the demise of the Shang, or after.
Heretofore, many scholars have suspected that there might have been a foreign contribution involved in the formative processes of the emerging Chinese polity, but beyond inferences and possibilities, no scholar has felt confident enough, or has been able to say, that there is material proof that this is possible.
This is an excerpt from an issue of Sino-Platonic Papers. (For the issue number and date, see the top of this page.) For the complete text, along with all notes and bibliographic citations, order the printed edition of this issue. For pricing information, see the SPP catalog.
Before there were Chinese as we know today, China was dominated by a Caucasuian type people. Maybe Jomon- Ainu. The oldest Mongoloid skeleton ever found is only 10k years old. (Oppenheimer)
They probably came from the same stock as all the other Indo-Europeans, just earlier and arrived through the Middle east. I suspect they became isolated in Spain - France during the LGM, 18-23,000 years ago and were joined by the rest of the 'family' after the LGM by a group arriving through Russia.
A DNA study that supports this assertion?
UC Davis Study Finds Distinct Genetic Profiles
"The Southern grouping included individuals from Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, as well as Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. The Northern group included people with English, Irish, German, Swedish and Ukranian ancestry."
That is where the name Galatia in Asia Minor came from (the land of Galls/Celts)
I celebrate it.
There's also Galacia in Central Europe...
"Is it not interesting that all of these locations are not being assembled in a master survey, to dispel the shadows on the extent and power of Celtic civilization. Our modern Western society denies its true roots. British Aristocracy and , yes, Christianity, have taken their respective tolls on the truth."
Do you really think there's an anti-Celt conspiracy???
I play in a pipe band, founded one at a high school. I can assure you there is no "conspiracy." but institutionalized prejudice against anything Celtic exists today.I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, just cultural prejudice.
How does it play out: jealousy, sureptitious censorship, gossip, I have seen it all, but we Celts just keep on truckin, and making the whole thing available to anyone who is interested.
Just do a memory search of your own on Celtic stereotypes from which prejudicial ideas flow, and you will find them there , like little wiggling parasites.
"Just do a memory search of your own on Celtic stereotypes from which prejudicial ideas flow, and you will find them there , like little wiggling parasites."
I can't think of any.
I have had a whole crowd of foppish liberal wine and cheese faux aristocrats who fight tooth and nail not to budget money for Celtic Arts courses at our school, and we have produced national level artists from the ranks of our students. Not willing to give in, our band funded the courses by playing 60 public engagements per year,earning 30 thousand dollars to fund instruction, creating fame and good will for our school throughout New England. Still the wine and cheese liberals would not relent, because the Celtic Arts are "uncivilized" when compared to the likes of Beethoven and Handel.Yet the public clamors for what we do, and the liberals are left rotting on their aristocratic vines, as they fail to produce student artists of national stature, who can't even gain entry into our leading University music programs.
Prejudice against Celtic culture is very real to me. I battle it every week. How many names in your community phone book are Scottish or Irish? If you have many, why are there not fiddle,harp, and piping concerts like those of Cape Breton. Why have those people lost their culture? Simple, because they were stigmatized for having it, stigmatized for speaking Gaelic. Yet they have no Gaelic or Celtic studies in our Universities, while we have Afro American studies, women's studies. There are more Swahili courses in the USA than Gaelic.
I get to see what happens when our band parades down the streets of New England. We are the recipients of a surge of gratitude and often tears in the eyes of those of Celtic descent. I wonder what the reason for that might be?
When I laugh around the dozens of kilt jokes, drunk jokes, I am not laughing at the jokes any more, but I am laughing at the fools who tell them from a false sense of superiority and ignorance.And I laugh way harder than any such joke warrants. It sometimes makes them think.
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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What a cutie-puss!
(This would make a wonderful stand-alone article, SC)
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