Talk:Tarim mummies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tarim mummies is part of WikiProject Central Asia, a project to improve all Central Asia-related articles. This includes but is not limited to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Central Asian portions of Iran and Russia, region-specific topics, and anything else related to Central Asia. If you would like to help improve this and other Central Asia-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.

This article is TOTAL BIASED ONE SIDED CRAP... remove it please.

This article is completely biased and one sided. Instead of reporting simply on what the Tarim mummies are and some possible implications of their existance could be, it instead "debunks" theories that aren't even discussed at length in the books that it attacks. This is not an encyclopedia entry, but one person's blind and moronic attack on something that they obviously don't understand or have any background in.

Where's the problem? It isn't politically correct but it is true, what a surprise!

Contents 1 Cultural Exchange 2 Where is the evidence 3 They could be finns (Or from Bengal) 4 Recent Edits 5 Dating 6 Ephedra 7 Indo-Europeans?

[edit] Cultural Exchange

And what kind of writing system do you suppose ancient nomads had? As far as I know, nomads typically don't have a written language system. And if any of the nomadic people located between the Caspian Sea and Xinjiang did not have a writing system pre-1000 BC, then I seriously doubt these Caucasians in the Tarim Basin did and most likely they didn't care for them.

Here we go again ,'white'aryans invade bringing civilisation bla ,bla ,bla.News Headlines "Indian Marries White Girl Produces Blond,or is it Brown or Mousey Haired offspring.However ,children are found to be Europoid,or is it Caucasoid ,Oh no they're Finnish."

It really goes both ways. Japan created the earliest polished stone tools in the world, by 30.000 BCE, and the earliest pottery by 10.000 BCE (see Japanese Paleolithic). China was ahead of the west by millenia in many technologies, which were later transmitted to the West (shipping as in Junk (sailing), paper making, gunpowder etc...). The domestication of the dog probably originated in China, as revealed by genetic analysis. And charriot and bronze-making were probably western invention somehow transmitted to China, in which these Tarim mummies are probably the missing link. PHG 21:59, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the evidence

Looking at the mummies they could be Turkman,Pakistani, Iranian or Indians (not all Indians look like Gandi).What does the word europoid mean, are they slavs, finns. I`ve read Mallorys` book and he only describes one as blond ,then later describes it as brunnete.He also,in my opinion, uses the words Europoid ,caucasoid and caucasian as meaning the same ,or is he sitting on the fench. What evidence is there that there are Indo-European (2500 years is along time,are White/Black Ammerican descended from the Apache,they have both been found in the same area in the last 2500 years)).I think the Beauty of Kroran looks like by mum (yes she looks that bad),David looks like my dad (but fater).Oh yes ,Im not white ,I`m light reddish brown caucasoid ,except when I ended up in A&E,the doctors said I looked very pale,something to the lack of blood to the skin,thankfully I got my color (US spelling) back.Ur david looks very pale to me,lost some blood over the past 4000 years I expect,you`d expect he would be darker considering the time he has spent in the sun,must have got bleached by the sand blasting.Quick,hide the pictures its the Police.

Just to be factual, Mallory mentions several blond-haired mummies (p176-205). For example, "Baby blue", who was located nearby "Ur David" is said to be blond or light brown. I happen to have seen this baby-mummy in Tokyo last week (momentarily displayed at Silk Road exhibition at the Tokyo Edogawa Museum), and the hair is indeed plain yellow. Hair is remarkably stable in time and is considered an excellent marker for ancient forensic analysis. Together with the Tocharian languages, Chinese historical reports etc... that's quite a web of evidence which few people doubt today. PHG 22:17, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Except the Mummies were preserved in salt, or at least salty ground, which may have had a bleaching effect on the hair. Hair is not remarkably stable really. Tocharian is classed as related to Celtic on the basis of how they said "hundred". Birds and bats have wings. That does not make them related. There is evidence these Mummies are Europiod, but not European. Lao Wai 30 June 2005 17:53 (UTC)

All else aside, the status of Tocharian as an Indo-European language is not in any credible dispute. The lexical and grammatical relationship there is quite clear—more solid, perhaps, than Albanian.

Whether this is material to the question of the ethnic identity of the Tarim mummies or not, I just wanted to clear up the facts regarding Tocharian (which from my interpretation of Lao Wai's comment, appear to have been questioned). —Ryanaxp 16:28, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Why does one assume that the presence of "europeans?" gave civilisation to whoever,they could have just been economic migrants;the largest civilisation in ancient times just happened to be over the mountains eg the indus valley ,and don`t forget the BMAC.Does one assume that the chinese,africans,south asian in britain/ammerica gave english to the local population, if 4000 years from now we found negroid skulls in London .The age of these skulls would coincide with a massive production of english writing ,massive industrial and economic growth.It is also possible the the middle east had more `blondes` than it does now, since the arab invasion probably effected local appearance.Why do we assume all blondes came from europe.The Irish and Basques are paleolithic europeans, yet most have dark hair.

Here is a picture of a kalash girl who live Pakistan [1]. The Kalash are unique in that the male genes are no different from other pakistanis,but they female dna consists almost completly of haplogroup J.J originates from the middle east and is wide spread in europe(supposed have spread with farming).

Just as a side note, the Kalash usually claim themselves to be descendants of Alexander the Great in the East.PHG 22:47, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah,and the Pastun think they are one of the lost tribes of Israel;and I`m from Mars .[2].We all like to associate with the last great tribe eg english with anglo-saxons,welsh with celts,europeans with aryans and any other historical figures.

The presence of Jewish people in Central Asia from the 1st millenium BCE is actually quite documented, and is usually associated with Persian expansion. The connection of the Kalash to Alexander the Great settlers is also quite generally supported. As for your affiliation to Mars, well, if you say so... PHG 22:12, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

European Genes are a subset of those found in Central Asia and Middle East,hence the first blondes would have originated from these areas with positve selection in europe increasing the frequency of blonds.

--The presence of certain Europid features in modern Middle Eastern and Central Asian populations is due to the fact that at numerous points in history, Europids populated those regions, thus genetic assimilation occurred at various times during invasions and migrations. European genes are not a subset of any modern ME/CA peoples, as it is actually the other way around.

Europeans are a subset of west/central asian and ME see Indo-aryan invasion theory for refs.Yes there has been recent european contribution eg Romans,slavs ,female slave trade,but that can not be said to apply to these mummies unless we have more evidence.

It is no surprise that in a province next to Afghanistan and Pakistan you find people who look like Afghans and Pakistanis. There is a distinction between people who are Europoid, as these Mummies are, and European. Who cares what contributions Europeans have made to the gene pool of central asia? Lao Wai 30 June 2005 17:53 (UTC)

"neolithic clothing techniques." This is news to me,should it not be Iron age clothing.I don't think clothing from the european neolithic has survived,I could be wrong.

I hope they publish the genetics tests on these mummies soon.I'll be a monkey's uncle and eat my hat (pointed or otherwise)if they find Haplogroup I or AMH.(Just in case,where's that alka seltzer)

Two of the last three images are of the same female.Most of these images date from 1000bce-500bce(Mallory).

[edit] They could be finns (Or from Bengal)

I've read a number of papers on the genetics of the Uralic finnish groups.They suggest that these groups originate from the Volga basin and spread after the end of the last Ice Age.However this is the same area from where some have argued that the Indo-European languages originate (Kurgan).Hence could these mummies be Finno-Uralic not Indo-European and pre- kurgans are originally FU(Finno-Uralic) not IE.There has always been the problem of find steppe culture as far south into bactria and India (the Indo-Iranian problem);Mallory books states that not only are these Proto-europids present in the tarim but so are Indo-afghan types dated 1800bce.Could these Indo-Afhgan types be Indo-Iranian spreading from west asia Iran (Or even India),displacing FU forcing them further north.FU are spread west to east across the same range as supposed early IE steppe cultures,but today are displaced further north.Archaeogenetics of Finno-Ugric speaking populations [3]

A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Early View)

Horse-mounted invaders from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang

Brian E. Hemphill, J.P. Mallory

Numerous Bronze Age cemeteries in the oases surrounding the Täklamakan Desert of the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, western China, have yielded both mummified and skeletal human remains. A dearth of local antecedents, coupled with woolen textiles and the apparent Western physical appearance of the population, raised questions as to where these people came from. Two hypotheses have been offered by archaeologists to account for the origins of Bronze Age populations of the Tarim Basin. These are the steppe hypothesis and the Bactrian oasis hypothesis. Eight craniometric variables from 25 Aeneolithic and Bronze Age samples, comprising 1,353 adults from the Tarim Basin, the Russo-Kazakh steppe, southern China, Central Asia, Iran, and the Indus Valley, are compared to test which, if either, of these hypotheses are supported by the pattern of phenetic affinities possessed by Bronze Age inhabitants of the Tarim Basin. Craniometric differences between samples are compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity are assessed with two types of cluster analysis (the weighted pair average linkage method and the neighbor-joining method), multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis. Results obtained by this analysis provide little support for either the steppe hypothesis or the Bactrian oasis hypothesis. Rather, the pattern of phenetic affinities manifested by Bronze Age inhabitants of the Tarim Basin suggests the presence of a population of unknown origin within the Tarim Basin during the early Bronze Age. After 1200 B.C., this population experienced significant gene flow from highland populations of the Pamirs and Ferghana Valley. These highland populations may include those who later became known as the Saka and who may have served as middlemen facilitating contacts between East (Tarim Basin, China) and West (Bactria, Uzbekistan) along what later became known as the Great Silk Road.

...

It appears that neither Han Chinese nor steppe populations played any detectable role in the initial establishment or subsequent interregional biological interactions of Bronze Age Tarim Basin populations.

...

This research confirms that populations from the urban centers of the Oxus civilization of Bactria played a role in the population history of the Bronze Age inhabitants of the Tarim Basin. Yet these Bactrian populations were not the direct, early colonizers envisioned by advocates of the Bactrian oasis hypothesis (Barber, [1999]). None of the analyses document the immediate and profoundly close affinities between colonizers and the colonized expected if the Tarim Basin experienced substantial direct settlement by Bactrian agriculturalists.

...

This study confirms the assertion of Han ([1998]) that the occupants of Alwighul and Krorän are not derived from proto-European steppe populations, but share closest affinities with Eastern Mediterranean populations. Further, the results demonstrate that such Eastern Mediterraneans may also be found at the urban centers of the Oxus civilization located in the north Bactrian oasis to the west. Affinities are especially close between Krorän, the latest of the Xinjiang samples, and Sapalli, the earliest of the Bactrian samples, while Alwighul and later samples from Bactria exhibit more distant phenetic affinities. This pattern may reflect a possible major shift in interregional contacts in Central Asia in the early centuries of the second millennium B.C.

....

Eastern Meditteranean or Mesopotamia is unlikely ... they are wearing plaid woollen twill, dyed in bright tartans, which has simply never been found associated with any of these groups.

[edit] Recent Edits

Ack! I should probably have read over the discussion page before doing my edits - it seems this isn't a really friendly place to do edits. Nonetheless, both Washington times and Al Jazeera reported on the results of the DNA test/Genetic mapping study proving them to be of Europoid origin. I contributed these edits for three reasons, they are interesting, they are recent and they confirm an earlier theory suggested on textile arguments and superficial observations that there was a link between Central Asia and Europe. --LinuxDude 19:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC) So why do Uygurs claim genetic link with the mummies. And what do you understand from a Caucasian i am an abkhaz (north caucasian, have light skin , dark hair ,dolikosephal skull but the nearest relatives of us (circassians and chechens) have a brakisephal skull (?Turkic) light skin light hair) none of caucasian people speak indo-european (but ossets from central asia) even not close to come from same ancestor Turkish(couple of simmilar basic words like water,big,me) or even negroid semitic languages are closer to indo european than caucasian languages. So is there any caucasian in west Europe...NO so what are you searching for in Tarim Basin, Some bloodthirst roman or german barbarian or perhaps achileus himself dont be fools the only white nation inhabitted there are Turks and they have no connection to arians after Andronovo times

Nobody is searching for anything. This article deals with what has been found, whether it hurts your national/racial/ethnic pride or not. 204.83.191.12 20:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dating

The authors of this article were too enthusiastic about pinpointing connections of the mummies to various ethnic groups. Could they state clearly to which period the mummies date? Do they predate or postdate the burials at Pazyryk? Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ephedra

Re the "Ephedra" claim - as presented by Rosof (1997), this obviously refers to Ephedra distachya, but I would not take this at face value. There are at least 3 Chinese species (called ma huang) of the genus, and to say "oh, there's some Ephedra in a bag, they must be "Indo-Aryan"!" is... well, whatever it is, it's not science. So is there any attempt to find out what species it was? If so, it should be linked. If not, it should be remarked. The stuff grows all over the semiarid areas of the N Hemisphere, with the species being only distinct in minute detail (which shouldn't have interested nomads, because it just works regardless of what species it is), and basically everywhere where it grows people use it as a natural amphetamine. That it was used in Zoroastrian ritual is also entirely conjectural and there are much better candidates for soma, such as fly agaric or Datura metel. Dysmorodrepanis 13:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indo-Europeans?

Where is the evidence that these are mummies of indo-european people ? Do mummies talk ? Are there any scriptures made by these people so their language can be connected to IE-languages ? IE in this article is used like it is somekind of race, which it's not. Whitout a solid proof of indo-europeanism of these mummies I think the article should be removed or atleast heavily edited.