Since history repeats …

Posted by John S Bolton on April 21, 2005, 02:29 PM | #

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.

Posted by John S Bolton on April 21, 2005, 02:41 PM | #

Another possibility is that the highly virulent falciparium malaria reached that area in the Roman influenced period. That kind of malaria is known to be exterminative of white populations, and especially of those more northern adapted.

Posted by John on April 21, 2005, 04:35 PM | #

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

Posted by john rackell on April 21, 2005, 04:47 PM | #

Transcript of PBS documentary on Takla Makan mummies:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2502chinamum.html

companion site/pictures:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/chinamum/taklamakan.html

Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 05:57 PM | #

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.

Posted by Zolk on April 21, 2005, 07:13 PM | #

Wow...I never knew there used to be a Caucasian presence in China, this is really interesting! I’m wondering, can anyone recommend any good books that deal extensively with these ancient Tocharian peoples? I’d really like to learn more abut these folks…

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 07:54 PM | #

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

Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 08:16 PM | #

Zolk,

These will be two informative books on the subject ...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0500051011/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-4517615-6992734?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

and ...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393045218/104-4517615-6992734?v=glance

Victor Mair has specialised in the mummies.  But my understanding is that he has invested a lot in them, and may not entirely exhibit the dispassionate, scientific approach that they deserve.  But that’s the whole problem, I think.  There isn’t enough dinterested study as yet.

Posted by Dienekes on April 21, 2005, 08:30 PM | #

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

Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 08:30 PM | #

Phil,

Pakistan?  That’s the bloke who runs our local golf club.  But I can see exactly what his great grand-dad got up to in The Queen’s Own Lancers.

Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 08:32 PM | #

Dienekes,

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 08:42 PM | #

GW,

That guy is in Pakistan. See Sailer’s post here.

I doubt that there was much mixing between the Queen’s lancers and Pakistani women. (chuckle) This man belongs to a tribe that arrived much earlier.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 08:54 PM | #

Look for the “caucasoid” on this page.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 08:57 PM | #

Anyone wish to guess her country of origin?

http://img197.exs.cx/img197/7816/asma4wp.jpg

Posted by Geoff Beck on April 21, 2005, 09:04 PM | #

Mexico?

Posted by Geoff Beck on April 21, 2005, 09:06 PM | #

Was Anthony Eden from N. Pakistan?

Do they look similar?

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:12 PM | #

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.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:14 PM | #

Syria. She’s the wife of Assad, Syria’s ruler.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:20 PM | #

A man from Afghanistan

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:21 PM | #

Afghan girl

http://img145.exs.cx/img145/199/kalashgirl3kx.jpg

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:22 PM | #

Child, Northwest Pakistan

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:26 PM | #

An image from Iran

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:27 PM | #

North African Berber

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:34 PM | #

The late Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s former ruler (his son now runs the country)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/400000/images/_401381_assad300.jpg

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:38 PM | #

Iranian woman

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

Posted by john rackell on April 21, 2005, 09:47 PM | #

you think the gubment might ever adopt a hot babe category for determining immigration eligibility.

I mean really, if I had to choose between the plain ol’ ‘wretched refuse of your teeming shore’ and someone like Assad’s wife it’s no contest.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:47 PM | #

CNN newsreader of Iranian origin, Rudi Bakhtiar

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 09:53 PM | #

you think the gubment might ever adopt a hot babe category for determining immigration eligibility.

LMAO

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 10:03 PM | #

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

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

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 10:13 PM | #

Pakistani actress

http://www.hindustantimes.com/wfsf/medium/2005/02.19/images/medium1249031.jpg

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 10:21 PM | #

And here’s a little surprise from Israel

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

Posted by seelow heights on April 22, 2005, 01:53 AM | #

Doesn’t he seem European to you?
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/todaysfeatures/2005/April/todaysfeatures_April37.xml&section=todaysfeatures
Yingpan Man not only had a gold foil death mask—a Greek tradition—covering his blonde bearded face, but also wore elaborate golden embroidered red and maroon garments with seemingly Western European designs.

Posted by jonjayray on April 22, 2005, 06:18 AM | #

“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”

Posted by jonjayray on April 22, 2005, 06:20 AM | #

Chinese cannot pronounce “R"s of course so that would account for the Yuezhi variant

Posted by Guessedworker on April 22, 2005, 08:52 AM | #

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

Posted by JW Holliday on April 22, 2005, 09:09 AM | #

I myself am not very fond of the “Steve Sailer” method of racial comparison - picking selected pictures of individuals (often anamolies of other ethnies) with varying lighting conditions and then comparing them.

There is no doubt that a minority of non-European Caucasians “look like” typical Europeans, particularly Berbers, some Levantines and Iranians, and some selected members of hill tribes in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan who have been isolated from the main populations of those nations.  On the other hand, some of the people pictured here have, despite their complexions, facial features that, in my opinion, suggest a Near Eastern origin - although the Pakistani tribesman for example does look, as Sailer has suggested, like Eric Idle.

Of course, the average person of these nations does not look like these anamolies, as the faces of immigrants from these countries so clearly attest.  More important however is that, given an interest in ethnic genetic interests which are based on gene frequency differences throughout the genome, what is important are the autosomal genetic profiles of the people, or groups, in question.

As regards the mummies themselves: we will have to wait until the genetic data are published before we can ascertain in what way they can be classified.  Given that these are ancient (albeit very well preserved) remains, I suspect that I will be less than enthused with the methodolgies used, but one must wait and see.  The connections to Europeans are suspected based upon physical appearance (with all the caveats above) as well as cultural artifacts.  One should not, however, ignore the forest for the trees: regardless of the exact identification of the mummies, their group of origin was displaced.  And that is the major point of the post.

Posted by dlg on April 22, 2005, 01:42 PM | #

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

Posted by John S Bolton on April 22, 2005, 04:31 PM | #

The Tarim Mummies, by Mallory and Mair, on page 250, says that Uyghurs have around half Caucasian genes, while Kazakhs are at 1/3, Dongxiangs 1/4, and Hui in Ningxia, around 10%. This percentage drops close to zero in the plains of China. There would seem to both displacement and survival. The Tarim had a small population dominated by a distant large one, which placed high strategic value on the region, similarly to today. In the circumstances of those times, with the Chinese living so close to physiological subsistence, wouldn’t there have been losses to to them, from having to support garrisons in the distant deserts? The trade was luxury items, of no use to the ordinary Chinese; yet the protection of the trade route was the reason for the expenditures being made in the Tarim, at very high cost.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 22, 2005, 08:22 PM | #

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).

Posted by Andrew L on April 23, 2005, 03:28 AM | #

Afganistan was home to Buddhist and Christian Buddhist, From Persia, It ought not be any suprise, white folk ,Ayarian we all come from Persia, (Iran), untill the Pathological egosentric, Arab, Mahm-I-am-Mad came on the scene, Rapes, plunder, Murder, for the last 1300 odd years, and still counting, Some genetic stuructures may still be in tact,Arabs were and are still the Occupiers of many once great nations, the argument has not been to liberate them of the occupying cult, China ought to grant a seperative status for their Muslems, seperate them from earth, the death cult has too end , sooner , rather than later, they do not hide there Agendas, only the appeasers do, so deal with the problem.

Posted by silvya on June 22, 2005, 10:38 AM | #

Jonrayray:

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

Posted by Yassin on December 02, 2007, 11:11 PM | #

this is a very great attempt. i guess it will help changing the idea that white race is only located in europe. an a Riffian berber i encourage this action. we were confused with otehr races in Morocco for a long time. being a white Riffian (as all riffians r) i was obliged to explain many times taht i am a north african & white coz most ppl didn’t believe that i am north african or moroccan coz of my whiet skin.
good job

Posted by Guessedworker on March 23, 2010, 12:38 PM | #

http://news.scotsman.com/news/DNA-experts--reveal-China39s.6168665.jp

DNA experts reveal China’s ancient open door to West

FOR four millennia their secrets lay hidden beneath the desert sands, the final resting place of a mysterious civilisation. And since their discovery in 1934, the Tarim mummies in China have perplexed historians and archaeologists.

But a remarkable new study has found that the origins of the inhabitants of the ancient graveyard in the Taklimakan desert north of Tibet lie in Europe.

A team of Chinese geneticists have analysed the DNA of the Bronze Age cadavers and found that they are of mixed ancestry, displaying both European and Siberian genetic markers.

One expert in Chinese history at the University of Edinburgh said the tests revealed a “fascinating development”. Professor Paul Bailey said the findings confirmed long-held suspicions that they had travelled to the autonomous region of Xinjiang from the West, well before the opening of the Silk Road in the 2nd century BC.

The graveyard of more than 200 mummies, known as Small River Cemetery No. 5, lies near a dried-up riverbed in the Tarim Basin, an inhospitable region encircled by mountain ranges.

The site was discovered by Folke Bergman, the Swedish archaeologist, in 1934 but then lay forgotten for 66 years until a Chinese expedition relocated it using GPS navigation.

Carbon testing carried out at Beijing University has dated the oldest of the mummies as far back as 3,980 years. However, until recently the history of how they came to be buried in the desert in upside-down boats was unclear.

That many of the mummies – well preserved thanks to the dry air and salty sands – displayed fair skin, brown hair, and long noses led to some educated guesses.

Bailey, professor of modern Chinese history at Edinburgh University, said: “There has always been talk of blue-eyed people inhabiting that area of China.”

Confirmation came thanks to a team led by Dr Hui Zhou of Jilin University in Changchun. All the men who were analysed had a Y chromosome that is now mostly found in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia, but rarely in China.

The mitochondrial DNA, which passes down the female line, consisted of a lineage from Siberia and two that are common in Europe.

Since both the Y chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA lineages are ancient, Dr Zhou and his team concluded the European and Siberian populations probably intermarried before entering the Tarim Basin 4,000 years ago.

Dr Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, who translated the studies by Dr Zhou’s team, said several items in the graveyard resemble artefacts or relate to customs familiar in Europe, including the use of boats in burials, string skirts, and phallic symbols.

The findings, published in the BMC Biology journal, turn on its head the notion that the Far East was an isolated realm before the early Europeans ventured east for trade.

“Historians of early China are sympathetic to the view that there was interaction between what we could call China today and central Asia and further afield, both in terms of cultural transmission but also in terms of the transmission of technology,” Bailey said. “The likes of bronze making and the use of the horse did not simply happen overnight in China.”

Such a subject has caused considerable controversy in China, where the official account has it that Zhang Qian, a general of the Han dynasty, led a military expedition to Xinjiang in the second century BC.

Today the area is occupied by Turkish-speaking Uighurs, who have been joined in the past 50 years by Han settlers from China. Ethnic tensions have recently arisen between the two groups, with riots in Urumqi, the region’s capital.

Bailey suggested that, although only a few decades ago the DNA results would have sparked anger in China, a new generation will be “interested” to learn of its early links with Europe.

“Twenty or 30 years ago this research would have been considered an abhorrent and controversial view that would have undermined Chinese pride in its indigenous cultural development,” he said.

“But the situation is different nowadays, and I think this will be viewed positively. China is interested in its historic links with the rest of the world, and this development shows that the country had close ties with other areas, it wasn’t closed off.”

Work will now continue to uncover more details of the Tarim mummies. Already archeologists have found hundreds of poles, each 13ft tall, around the burial site, described as resembling oars from a galley. Clothes have also been recovered, including felt caps with feathers, woollen capes with tassels, and leather boots.

Their language remains unknown, but Dr Mair, an expert in the prehistory of the Tarim Basin, believes it could have been Tokharian, an ancient member of the Indo-European family of languages.