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Since history repeats …The Tarim River Basin is a vast, largely desertified dust bowl at the western edge of modern China. Today it is known as Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It is populated by Moslem Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking, central Asian peoples, some five million in all. There is much strife in the region, and some observers - among them Dr George Friedman of Stratfor – see the separatist demands of the Moslem inhabitants as a likely cause of significant ethnic conflict in the near future. There is much at stake. Huge reserves of petroleum and natural gas are said to lie beneath the Basin floor. The Beijing government, therefore, has been ultra sensitive to certain issues affecting the region. And one of those has been the extraordinary story of the Mummies of Tarim, the scientific investigation of which has, until very recently, been impossible to progress. More than a hundred of these Bronze Age and notably non-Mongoloid corpses have been excavated since the late 1970s by Chinese and Uighur scholars. News of them did not filter out to the West until the 90’s. They are not really mummies in the Egyptian sense. They have been preserved through burial in exceptionally arid, alkaline soils. The most famous is perhaps also the oldest, the 4,000-year-old, hauntingly-named ”Beauty of Loulan”.
For us, accustomed to the notion that modern nutrition delivers a historically well-developed population physically and intellectually it comes as a shock to learn that the Beauty of Loulan was 6 ft tall. Some of the males from Chärchän, like the 3,000-year-old one pictured below, are well over 6ft. The tallest, Yingpan Man, is 6ft 6in. Many are light or red-haired. They are clothed in cashmere and twill-woven wool. Their grave goods include this bronze bowl with a sun-wheel scribed at its centre.
They are now recognised as the first people to have settled in the Tarim Basin. According to Victor Mair, the leading western expert on the mummies, they lived there unchallenged for at least one thousand years before Chinese peoples began to arrive around the eastern edges of the basin some 3,000 years ago. In Chinese texts dating from 500 BC - which is still the correct time-frame for the mummies - there are references to a people called Yuezhi or Ruzhi who were still dwelling in the Basin. The tongue they spoke is considered to be Indo-European and has been linked to manuscripts from a somewhat later period which linguists have named Tocharian. How a European people came to be so far east will always be a matter of conjecture. But the implications are far-reaching. Conventional thinking has it that prehistoric culture began in the Near East or Central Asia. Only later was it transmitted to the barbarian hordes to the west. China, meanwhile, developed in splendid isolation. But the Tarim mummies throw all that into doubt. They hold out the possibility that cultural advancement took place much earlier in the west than hitherto suspected. There is even the “crazy” theory that, far from Europe being civilized from the east, it was the east which was civilized by Europeans. The Yuezhi did not survive the invasion from the east, however. In such a harsh region, where only small groups could cling to a perilous existence along the Tarim River, the competition for resources would have been fierce. For the Yuezhi that competition proved too great. Probably, a remnant were driven south and melted into the population of the Hindhu Kush. But all we can say with certainty is that the most easterly redoubt of Caucasian Man was surrendered with absolute finality to an East Asian competitor. He, in turn, relinquished it to the present hybrid Caucasian/East Asian inhabitants about AD 300. But the contest is doubtless not over. So, as you read of the genetic testing and confirmation of the Yuezhi’s Caucasian origins and gaze upon the enigmatic faces pictured here, spare a thought for yourself and your own family. Racial displacement and dissolution is a constant in the affairs of Man. In our time it has not only not been vanquished by modernity – and, on this blog anyway, not been wished away by leftist race-denial and universalism – it is picking-up with a vengeance, literally, across all our homelands. The mummies of the Tarim Basin became, in effect, the distant ancestors of other peoples. There is a powerful lesson for us in that. Posted by JW Holliday on Thursday, April 21, 2005 at 07:13 AM in History Comments:2
Posted by John S Bolton on April 21, 2005, 10:41 AM | # 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. 3
Posted by John on April 21, 2005, 12:35 PM | # Can you provide more links to this information? It is interesting. 4
Posted by john rackell on April 21, 2005, 12:47 PM | # Transcript of PBS documentary on Takla Makan mummies: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2502chinamum.html companion site/pictures: 5
Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 01:57 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. 6
Posted by Zolk on April 21, 2005, 03:13 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… 7
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 03:54 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 8
Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 04:16 PM | # Zolk, These will be two informative books on the subject ... 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. 9
Posted by Dienekes on April 21, 2005, 04:30 PM | # The physical appearance of the mummies proves that they were Caucasoid, not that they were “European”. 10
Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 04:30 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. 11
Posted by Guessedworker on April 21, 2005, 04:32 PM | # Dienekes, I think an expert in ancient woven fabrics has contributed towards the European label. 12
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 04:42 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. 14
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 04:57 PM | # Anyone wish to guess her country of origin? 16
Posted by Geoff Beck on April 21, 2005, 05:06 PM | # Was Anthony Eden from N. Pakistan?
Do they look similar? 17
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:12 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. 18
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:14 PM | # Syria. She’s the wife of Assad, Syria’s ruler. 22
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:26 PM | # An image from Iran
23
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:27 PM | # North African Berber http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/jinniya/whites/kabyle_berber.jpg 24
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:34 PM | # The late Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s former ruler (his son now runs the country)
25
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:38 PM | # Iranian woman
26
Posted by john rackell on April 21, 2005, 05:47 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. 27
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:47 PM | # CNN newsreader of Iranian origin, Rudi Bakhtiar
28
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 05:53 PM | # you think the gubment might ever adopt a hot babe category for determining immigration eligibility. LMAO 29
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 06:03 PM | # Gandhi, Prime Minister of India between 1984 and 1989 with Mugabe 30
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 21, 2005, 06:13 PM | # Pakistani actress
32
Posted by seelow heights on April 21, 2005, 09:53 PM | # Doesn’t he seem European to you? 33
Posted by jonjayray on April 22, 2005, 02:18 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” 34
Posted by jonjayray on April 22, 2005, 02:20 AM | # Chinese cannot pronounce “R"s of course so that would account for the Yuezhi variant 35
Posted by Guessedworker on April 22, 2005, 04:52 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. 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:- 36
Posted by JW Holliday on April 22, 2005, 05:09 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. 37
Posted by dlg on April 22, 2005, 09:42 AM | # I think the Pakistani man looks like John Cleese, not Eric Idle. 38
Posted by John S Bolton on April 22, 2005, 12:31 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. 39
Posted by Phil Peterson on April 22, 2005, 04:22 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). 40
Posted by Andrew L on April 22, 2005, 11:28 PM | # 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. 41
Posted by silvya on June 22, 2005, 06:38 AM | # Jonrayray: I’m Chinese and I most certainly can pronounce my Rs. Please stop making such racist assumptions. 42
Posted by Yassin on December 02, 2007, 07:11 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. 43
Posted by Guessedworker on March 23, 2010, 08:38 AM | # http://news.scotsman.com/news/DNA-experts—reveal-China39s.6168665.jp
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Posted by John S Bolton on April 21, 2005, 10:29 AM | #
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.