Since history repeats …

One of the remarkable finds of the archaeology of the Kuchean or Tocharian people of antiquity is that excavation of houses from one period found an unheard of approximation of literacy in every household. Each house contained large volumes of wood pieces with writing on them, a circumstance not found again anywhere until modern times. One might suspect that these people had an advantage, but it would have been soreley tested by the silk road’s vector role for the transmission of plagues. The first millenium was characterized by declining populations at both ends of the silk road, presumably caused by catastrophic epidemics. Cultural decline would not have hit both ends on the same timetable. China valued the trade on that route so highly that they garrisoned large numbers well into the Tarim basin. This eventually resulted in the mixed population of today, which has not been described as distinguished. Genetic studies of agricultural plants have shown that rice and others originated in the mideast, and were introduced into China from the west. It would be a stretch to describe all of Anatolia as part of ancient Europe, such that agriculture might be called European in origin, in that unusual sense.

Can you provide more links to this information?  It is interesting.

John,

There’s a reasonable amount of information available on the net.  No problem with finding it.  What you do have to watch out for, though, is the tendency for a partisan inflation of the argument.  The idea of an advanced Caucasian society over the mountains and on the western border of China four thousand years ago is extraordinarily powerful.  But it is also extraordinarily useful to some folk.  There needs to be far more research of the mummies before any kind of certainty can be ascribed to them.

Meantime we are left with JW’s last two paragraphs which, I think, faithfully transmit the most important message for us that the mummies contain.

That there were once fully caucasian peoples in western China ought not to surprise anyone really. A little further west there are still pockets of heavily caucasian populations in Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan (though obviously not unmixed to a non-trivial degree):

http://www.geocities.com/om_kranti/misc/guesswho1.jpg

A man from Northern Pakistan

The physical appearance of the mummies proves that they were Caucasoid, not that they were “European”.

Dienekes,

I think an expert in ancient woven fabrics has contributed towards the European label.

Look for the “caucasoid” on this page.

Mexico?

Geoff,

There are “pockets” of whites in many parts of the world outside of the west (and not descended from 18th and 19th century colonials). The majority of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan is asiatic.

But there are tiny populations still left in those places that are close to white. If you meet them dressed in a suit in New York or London, you could make the mistake of thinking they are Europeans.

A man from Afghanistan

http://img204.exs.cx/img204/5190/afghan7ev.jpg

Child, Northwest Pakistan

http://img145.exs.cx/img145/6469/pakistan8bq.jpg

North African Berber

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/jinniya/whites/kabyle_berber.jpg

Iranian woman

http://www.fajrfilmfest.com/23/competition/far/iran-long/marsiye-barf-b.jpg

CNN newsreader of Iranian origin, Rudi Bakhtiar

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/images/bakhtiar.rudi.jpg

Gandhi, Prime Minister of India between 1984 and 1989 with Mugabe

http://www.indianembassy.org/gallery/fp/1980/rajiv1.jpg

And here’s a little surprise from Israel

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v718/Heimdall_1/3.jpg

“references to a people called Yuezhi or Ruzhi “

Reminds me of the Kievan Rus—after whom Russia takes its name

They were tall red-headed Vikings who sailed their longships up rivers right into Russia.  “Rus” means “red”

From an article by David W.Anthony, The Opening of the Eurasian Steppe at 2000 BC, published by the Institute for the Study of Man, Washington, in conjunction with University of Pennsylvania Publications, Philadelphia, 1998:-

Beginning at least as early as the Bronze Age, the people of Xinjiang were closely connected with the steppes to the west. Their physical type, fabrics, wheeled-vehicle technology, and burial rituals suggest an origin in the western steppes. The steppes were not a one way corridor leading from west to east. Instead, the steppe zone was potentially a bridge across the center of the Eurasian continent. Once that bridge was open the dynamics of historical development changed permanently, not just for the societies east of the Tian Shan, but for all the peoples of Eurasia.

… No single factor produced the change that opened the steppe corridor at around 2000 BCE. The evolution of the Andronovo horizon was the culmination of changes that had been developing in the western steppes over the previous 3,000 years. Three fundamental factors revolutionized steppe lifeways during this long period.
The first was the introduction, largely from outside the steppe zone, of the two principal domesticated grazing animals, cattle and sheep, which laid the foundation for steppe subsistence practices. The second was innovation in the means of transport - the introduction of horseback riding and of the wheeled vehicle - which together made it possible to exploit the low-energy grassland environment in a manner that was both productive and predictable. The culminating factor was a complex interplay of technological and ideological changes after 2000 BCE - the spread of cattle and sheep herding east of the Urals, the development of metallurgy and mining in the steppe zone of the southern Urals and in northern Kazakhstan, the introduction of the horse-drawn chariot as an instrument of elite competition, and the diffusion of an associated Indo-Iranian ritual complex that was widely adopted by the previously diverse societies between the Urals and the Tian Shan.

Sheep and cattle could be herded on foot, but large-scale herding was greatly facilitated by horseback riding. Riding also …

… improved the annual search for good pastures, and for any other resources that required long-distance travel. Once people began to ride, perceived and experienced distances were reduced, and the social and geographic landscape of the steppes altered. Riding led to the expansion of territorial boundaries, which increased territorial conflicts and warfare, and intensified long-distance trade …

… In the drier portions of the Eurasian steppe, herds of cattle and sheep were required to move frequently and across large horizontal distances between major river valleys in order to find sufficient pasture. Bulk transport was needed to help the herders move their tents and supplies with the herd. In the absence of such transport, early steppe herders like those of the Sredni Stog culture remained tied to the major river valleys, where all of their settlements and cemeteries were located. When wheeled vehicles were introduced, the combination of vehicular bulk transport and horseback riding made large-scale herd management possible and freed steppe herders from their logistical dependence on residential bases in the river valleys. This change led to a dispersal of settlements and cemeteries across the steppes and greatly increasing the productivity of steppe pastoralism.

The earliest wheeled vehicles in the Eurasian steppes appeared west of the Caspian Sea in the context of the Yamnaya culture (3500-2500 BCE), which grew partially from Sredni Stog, but occupied a much larger area, from the Danube delta eastward to the Ural River. Yamnaya vehicles were slow, solid-wheeled wagons and carts, probably pulled by oxen, but they could carry enough tents and supplies to enable herders to live in distant pastures with their herds …

… for months at a time. The earliest Yamnaya wagon is dated about 2900 BCE at Bal’ki on the lower Dnieper.

More here:-
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/needham-anthony.html

I think the Pakistani man looks like John Cleese, not Eric Idle.

JW,

I agree completely.

I had put in a caveat: those individuals whose pictures you see here are not representative of the populations of the countries they come from (and even more so could be mixed to a non-trivial degree; though that is not always apparent).

Jonrayray:

I’m Chinese and I most certainly can pronounce my Rs. Please stop making such racist assumptions.