Ishtar, I was referring to the Vedic text that I read. Sorry. There is no"Land of Soma" thread here. I can't remember what text I read it in either. I'll see what I can find.Beagle - I can't find the Land of Soma thread, and I'd love to read it. Do you know where it is?
the Central Asian Civilization...
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
Ah...I was hoping it would contain the rationale behind the scholars new thinking that it came from an area on the border of Afghanistan and Iran. I'd be interested to see that.
I don't think there is a Vedic text called The Land of Soma, not that I'm aware of within the four oldest Vedic books. Of course, I could be wrong....
I don't think there is a Vedic text called The Land of Soma, not that I'm aware of within the four oldest Vedic books. Of course, I could be wrong....
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
All -
I'm a little surprised that nobody has picked up the connection to type "B" blood. Major genetic variance, starting somewhere in the East, and spreading across Western Europe maybe 10k years ago. Nomadic tribes, especially the Scythians, often brought up in this argument, as well as Aryans.
By the way, Type B is often thought of as a Middle Eastern genetic marker only.
In fact, it had a high Northern presence also, from early on.
Them Scythians apparently covered a lot of ground!
john
I'm a little surprised that nobody has picked up the connection to type "B" blood. Major genetic variance, starting somewhere in the East, and spreading across Western Europe maybe 10k years ago. Nomadic tribes, especially the Scythians, often brought up in this argument, as well as Aryans.
By the way, Type B is often thought of as a Middle Eastern genetic marker only.
In fact, it had a high Northern presence also, from early on.
Them Scythians apparently covered a lot of ground!
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
I happened to check in before I called it a day, and you've brought up a subject I'm fond of John. I began trying to understand many of these things long before the internet. I've always followed the fossil record and also what we know about blood type distribution. Type O blood is the most predominant across the planet, but after that we can see the origin and spread of other blood types.
This is the distribution for type B blood :
It's origin and presence still remains in the east, with the area of the former Indus/Sarasvati civilization being a stronghold of the allele.
This is the distribution for type B blood :
It's origin and presence still remains in the east, with the area of the former Indus/Sarasvati civilization being a stronghold of the allele.
There isn't. I've done a bad job of explaining this (not unusual). I was quoting a phrase in one of the texts. The Rigveda I think. Part of the sentence was "....in the west, in the land of the Soma..". And in the attached critique it said that scholars believed this place to near the Iran/Afghanistan border. Of course, no one knows where it's at.I don't think there is a Vedic text called The Land of Soma
Sorry for any confusion Ishtar.
Thanks so much, Beagle. Please don't apologise. I confuse people all the time! 
The reason I was interested in the rationale behind the thinking about this location is that, so often, the location is worked out on the back of the linguists theories which, to say the least, are shaky and not based on very much at all.
Mainly, those responsible rearrange the order of the books of the Rig-veda - with very little reason to do so - to support their theories, to try to prove that "Oh yes, you see, in Book 3, Mandala 4, they are coming over mountainous terrain, so that means that Book 3 must have been written first when the Aryans were coming into India from Afghanistan." You see, they start off from the posit that there were Aryans and they invaded/migrated from the north. That to them is a given, because the linguists say so. Therefore, Book 3 was written first. In other words, circular thinking.
But there's also an equally reasonable case (which the AIT proponents ignore to the point of suppressing) to make that the Indus tribes migrated from the north (Siberia) and (East), as they lost their Soma crops as the Saraswati river dried up, and gradually moved west, ending up in the Punjab, where it was still growing, and then there was a holy war (recounted in the Rig-veda as Sudas and the 10 Kings). I say, 'holy war' because this herb was central to their religious ceremonies. The story of Sudas and the 10 Kings was extrapolated and embellished millennia later to become The Mahabharata.
Sorry, I'm waffling. I'll stop. Hope this helps!
The reason I was interested in the rationale behind the thinking about this location is that, so often, the location is worked out on the back of the linguists theories which, to say the least, are shaky and not based on very much at all.
Mainly, those responsible rearrange the order of the books of the Rig-veda - with very little reason to do so - to support their theories, to try to prove that "Oh yes, you see, in Book 3, Mandala 4, they are coming over mountainous terrain, so that means that Book 3 must have been written first when the Aryans were coming into India from Afghanistan." You see, they start off from the posit that there were Aryans and they invaded/migrated from the north. That to them is a given, because the linguists say so. Therefore, Book 3 was written first. In other words, circular thinking.
But there's also an equally reasonable case (which the AIT proponents ignore to the point of suppressing) to make that the Indus tribes migrated from the north (Siberia) and (East), as they lost their Soma crops as the Saraswati river dried up, and gradually moved west, ending up in the Punjab, where it was still growing, and then there was a holy war (recounted in the Rig-veda as Sudas and the 10 Kings). I say, 'holy war' because this herb was central to their religious ceremonies. The story of Sudas and the 10 Kings was extrapolated and embellished millennia later to become The Mahabharata.
Sorry, I'm waffling. I'll stop. Hope this helps!
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
This might be of interest, from Tom Cowan's book on Celtic shamanism: Fire in the Head.john wrote:
By the way, Type B is often thought of as a Middle Eastern genetic marker only.
In fact, it had a high Northern presence also, from early on.
Them Scythians apparently covered a lot of ground!
john
"Historian of European magic and witchcraft Carlo Ginzburg has pointed out the confluence of Celts, Thracians and Scythian tribes in the area of the lower Danube. The Scythians north and west of the Black Sea had a strong shamanic culture, derived, according to Ginzburg's theory, from their contacts with Central Asian shamans. The Scythians built sweat lodges, similar in construction to those of Native Americans, in which they burned hemp seeds on heated stones. The fumes produced ecstatic states of pleasure, much the same as those recorded by travellers who witnessed similar ceremonies among the Siberian shamans.....
...The very early Celts in the lower Danube could have used hallucinogenic techniques borrowed from the Siberians by way of the Scythians. They might have used the sweat lodge with mind altering herbs and they might have given novice Druids hallucinogenic drinks .....
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Ishtar wrote:This might be of interest, from Tom Cowan's book on Celtic shamanism: Fire in the Head.john wrote:
By the way, Type B is often thought of as a Middle Eastern genetic marker only.
In fact, it had a high Northern presence also, from early on.
Them Scythians apparently covered a lot of ground!
john
"Historian of European magic and witchcraft Carlo Ginzburg has pointed out the confluence of Celts, Thracians and Scythian tribes in the area of the lower Danube. The Scythians north and west of the Black Sea had a strong shamanic culture, derived, according to Ginzburg's theory, from their contacts with Central Asian shamans. The Scythians built sweat lodges, similar in construction to those of Native Americans, in which they burned hemp seeds on heated stones. The fumes produced ecstatic states of pleasure, much the same as those recorded by travellers who witnessed similar ceremonies among the Siberian shamans.....
...The very early Celts in the lower Danube could have used hallucinogenic techniques borrowed from the Siberians by way of the Scythians. They might have used the sweat lodge with mind altering herbs and they might have given novice Druids hallucinogenic drinks .....
Ishtar -
Yes, possibly. However, if I remember correctly, the Siberian Shamanic tradition developed hallucinogenic ceremonies centered around imbibing a brew derived from Amanita muscaria, not Cannabis spp.
That said, there is yet another wild card in this Neolithic Tarot.
The Tocharian mummies found in the Taklamakan desert of China.
They are quite old, and seem to have come from the West.
I have not been able to find anything on genetic/blood type research which may have been done on them.
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Yes - did I hear that these guys were red haired?
Also, if the Siberians were using Amanita Muscaria, and the theory about the Bharatha tribe (the composers of the Rig-veda) coming down from Siberia is true (and it's equally as compellling as any other), then that would mean that Soma is most likely to be Amanita Muscaria- QED.
Also, if the Siberians were using Amanita Muscaria, and the theory about the Bharatha tribe (the composers of the Rig-veda) coming down from Siberia is true (and it's equally as compellling as any other), then that would mean that Soma is most likely to be Amanita Muscaria- QED.
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Ishtar -Ishtar wrote:Yes - did I hear that these guys were red haired?
Also, if the Siberians were using Amanita Muscaria, and the theory about the Bharatha tribe (the composers of the Rig-veda) coming down from Siberia is true (and it's equally as compellling as any other), then that would mean that Soma is most likely to be Amanita Muscaria- QED.
A book you might be interested in is Mircea Eliade's "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of ecstacy", published early fifties, I think. The hell of it it is I had it in my hand a few weeks ago and now can't find it to save my life. Too many goddam books in the house! Anyway, he has an account pertaining to use of Amanita by the Siberians.
Second. Tocharians.
Yes, red haired, and blond also. Northern/Western Europeans dressed in very bright pattern woven clothing. Oranges, yellows, blues. Which implies they knew how to spin fiber, how to dye fiber, how to weave fiber, and how to cut and sew it into clothes. All this maybe 4000 years ago, in China. The Chinese, predictably, are appparently very tight-mouthed about this.
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
From Wikipedia.
Tarim mummies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia •
The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BC to AD 200. The most remarkable features of these mummies, given the general location of these graves, are the Caucasoid physical type feature the corpses exhibit. The mummies, particularly the early ones, are associated with the presence of the Indo-European Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin. The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which date from 1800–500 BC, 21 of which are Caucasoid—the earliest Caucasoid mummies found in the Tarim basin—and 8 of which are of the same Caucasoid physical type found at Qäwrighul.[1]:237
Contents
[hide]
1 Archeological record
2 Genetic links
3 Posited origins
4 Historical records and associated manuscript
4.1 Tocharians
4.2 Yuezhi
4.3 Roman accounts
5 Controversy
6 Cultural exchanges
7 Footnotes
8 References
9 See also
10 External links
[edit]Archeological record
At the beginning of the 20th century European explorers such as Sven Hedin, Albert von Le Coq and Sir Aurel Stein all recounted their discoveries of desiccated bodies in their search for antiquities in Central Asia.[1]:10 Since then many other mummies have been found and analysed, most of them now displayed in the museums of Xinjiang. Most of these mummies were found on the eastern (around the area of Lopnur, Subeshi near Turfan, Kroran, Kumul) and southern (Khotan, Niya, Qiemo) edge of the Tarim Basin.
The earliest Tarim mummies, found at Qäwrighul and dated to 1800 BC, are of a Caucasoid physical type whose closest affiliation is to the Bronze Age populations of southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and Lower Volga.[1]:237
The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which date from 1100–500 BC, 21 of which are Mongoloid—the earliest Mongoloid mummies found in the Tarim basin—and 8 of which are of the same Caucasoid physical type found at Qäwrighul.[1]:237
The most famous[citation needed] mummies are the tall, red-haired "Chärchän man" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BC); his son (1000 BC), a small 1-year-old baby with blond hair protruding from under a red and blue felt cap, and blue stones in place of the eyes; the "Hami Mummy" (c. 1400–800 BC), a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi" (4th or 3rd century BC), who wore tall pointed hats.
Many of the mummies have been found in very good condition, owing to the dryness of the desert, and the desiccation of the corpses it induced. The mummies share many typical Caucasoid body features (elongated bodies, angular faces, recessed eyes), and many of them have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. It is not known whether their hair has been bleached by internment in salt. Their costumes, and especially textiles, may indicate a common origin with Indo-European neolithic clothing techniques or a common low-level textile technology.[citation needed]
[edit]Genetic links
DNA sequence data[2] shows that at least one mummy had a haplotype characteristic of western Eurasia, confirming the earlier suggestion that the mummies are of at least partial West Asian descent.
A team of Chinese and American researchers working in Sweden tested DNA from 52 separate mummies, including the mummy denoted "Beauty of Loulan." By genetically mapping the mummies' origins, the researchers confirmed the theory that these mummies were of West Asian descent. Victor Mair, a University of Pennsylvania professor and project leader for the team that did the genetic mapping, commented that these studies were:
...extremely important because they link up eastern and western Eurasia at a formative stage of civilization (Bronze Age and early Iron Age) in a much closer way than has ever been done before.[3]
This evidence corroborated the earlier link made between the textiles found with the mummies with early European textile and weave types and the superficial observation that the mummies seemed to have blond and red hair. An earlier study by Jilin University had found a mtDNA haplotype characteristic of Western Eurasian populations[citation needed].
In trying to trace the origins of these peoples Victor Mair's team suggested that these peoples may have arrived in the region by way of the forbidding Pamir Mountains about 5000 years ago.
Needless to say this evidence is considered controversial. It refutes the contemporary nationalist claims of the regional Uighur peoples who claimed to be the indigenous peoples of the Xinjiang, rather than the Chinese Hans. In comparing the DNA to the modern day Uighur peoples, they found some genetic similarities with the mummies, but "no direct links".
About the controversy Mair has stated that:
The new finds are also forcing a reexamination of old Chinese books that describe historical or legendary figures of great height, with deep-set blue or green eyes, long noses, full beards, and red or blond hair. Scholars have traditionally scoffed at these accounts, but it now seems that they may be accurate.[cite this quote]
Chinese scientists were initially hesitant to give up the DNA samples because they were sensitive about the nationalist Uighur claims, and to prevent a pillaging of national monuments by foreigners.
[edit]Posited origins
Physical anthropologists propose the movement of at least two Caucasoid physical types into the Tarim basin, which Mallory & Mair (2000:317–318) associate with the Tocharian and Iranian (Saka) branches of the Indo-European language family, respectively.
B. E. Hemphill's biodistance analysis of cranial metrics (as cited in Larsen 2002 and Schurr 2001) has questioned the identification of the Tarim Basin population as European, noting that the earlier population has close affinities to the Indus Valley population, and the later population with the Oxus River valley population. Because craniometry can produce results which make no sense at all (e.g. the close relationship between Neolithic populations in Russia and Portugal) and therefore lack any historical meaning, any putative genetic relationship must be consistent with geographical plausibility and have the support of other evidence.[1]:236
Han Kangxin (as cited in Mallory & Mair 2000:236–237), who examined the skulls of 302 mummies, found the closest relatives of the earlier Tarim Basin population in the populations of the Afanasevo culture situated immediately north of the Tarim Basin and the Andronovo culture that spanned Kazakhstan and reached southwards into West Central Asia and the Altai.
It is the Afanasevo culture to which Mallory & Mair (2000:294–296, 314–318) trace the earliest Bronze Age settlers of the Tarim and Turpan basins. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Eurasian Steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization.[1]:260, 294–296, 314–318
Hemphill & Mallory (2004) confirm a second Caucasoid physical type at Alwighul (700–1 BC) and Krorän (AD 200) different from the earlier one found at Qäwrighul (1800 BC) and Yanbulaq (1100–500 BC):
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 BC.
Mallory & Mair (2000:318) associate this later (700 BC–200 AD) Caucasoid physical type with the populations who introduced the Iranian Saka language to the western part of the Tarim basin.
From Libby Rosof (1997) "Penn Researcher Finds Chinese Mummies’ Surprising Roots":
"In examining small bags some of the mummies wore around their necks, Mair’s team found a connection to Iranian culture. The bags, which were buried with some mummies buried between 1000 B.C. to 200-to-300 A.D., contained ephedra, a medicinal shrub used in Zoroastrian religious rituals. “The ephedra indicates that some of these people were almost certainly speaking an Iranian language,” [Mair] said."[4]
Mair concluded (Mair etc al, 2006):
"From the evidence available, we have found that during the first 1,000 years after the Loulan Beauty, the only settlers in the Tarim Basin were Caucasoid. East Asian peoples only began showing up in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin about 3,000 years ago, Mair said, while the Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, largely based in modern day Mongolia, around the year 842."
[edit]Historical records and associated manuscript
[edit]Tocharians
The Indo-European Tocharian languages also have been attested in the same geographical area, and although the first known epigraphic evidence dates to the 6th century CE, the degree of differentiation between Tocharian A and Tocharian B, and the absence of Tocharian language remains beyond that area, tends to indicate that a common Tocharian language existed in the same area during the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Although Tocharian texts have never been found in direct relation with the mummies, their identical geographical location and common non-Chinese origin suggest that the mummies were related to the Tocharians and spoke a similar Indo-European language.
The Tocharian were described as having full beards, deep-set eyes and high noses and with no sign of decline as attestation in the Chinese sources for the past 1,000 years. This was first noted after the Tocharian had came under the steppe nomads and Chinese subjugation. During the 3rd to 4th century CE, the Tocharian reached their height by incorporating adjoining states.[5]:34-57, 77-88, 96-103
[edit]Yuezhi
In the much easterly geographical area, reference to the Yuezhi name in Guanzi was made around 7th century BCE by the Chinese economist Guan Zhong, though the book is generally consider to be a forgery of later generations.[6]:115-127 The contributed author, Guan Zhong described the Yuzhi ??, or Niuzhi ??, as a people from the north-west who supplied jade to the Chinese from the nearby mountains of Yuzhi ?? at Gansu. A large part of the Yuezhi, vanquished by the Xiongnu, were to migrate to southern Asia in the 2nd century BC, and later establish the Kushan Empire in northern India and Afghanistan.
[edit]Roman accounts
Pliny the Elder (, Chap XXIV "Taprobane") reports a curious description of the Seres (in the territories of northwestern China) made by an embassy from Taprobane (Ceylon) to Emperor Claudius, saying that they "exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking", suggesting they may be referring to the ancient Caucasian populations of the Tarim Basin:
"They also informed us that the side of their island (Taprobane) which lies opposite to India is ten thousand stadia in length, and runs in a south-easterly direction--that beyond the Emodian Mountains (Himalayas) they look towards the Serve (Seres), whose acquaintance they had also made in the pursuits of commerce; that the father of Rachias (the ambassador) had frequently visited their country, and that the Seræ always came to meet them on their arrival. These people, they said, exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking, having no language of their own for the purpose of communicating their thoughts. The rest of their information (on the Serae) was of a similar nature to that communicated by our merchants. It was to the effect that the merchandise on sale was left by them upon the opposite bank of a river on their coast, and it was then removed by the natives, if they thought proper to deal on terms of exchange. On no grounds ought luxury with greater reason to be detested by us, than if we only transport our thoughts to these scenes, and then reflect, what are its demands, to what distant spots it sends in order to satisfy them, and for how mean and how unworthy an end!"
[edit]Controversy
The focus by some scholars and writers on the racial or ethnic identity of the Tarim Mummies has been criticised as being motivated by Eurocentrism and Indo-European chauvinism. Light (1999a, 1999b) argues that the Euro-American scholars and their publicists should not get so excited about finding people who look like themselves that they present only evidence for European connections, while neglecting artifacts of a more complex past. He considered the Mysterious Mummies of China, a NOVA/WGBH documentary first aired on PBS January 1999 to be distorted.
Light (1999b) suggests that the documentary treats present-day local Uyghurs as primitives whose history and cultural changes are immaterial: Only their origins matter. Never mentioning that Islamic cultural influences have been strong here for nearly a millennium. He also concludes that the mummies who breached China's fabled isolation 1,000 years earlier than previously thought provide no "startling conclusion." And considered China's "fabled isolation" as a fable.
Light (1999a) "[He] argues he is trying to show the links of East and West, but he does it by keeping them racially separate. In contrast, the graves are full of racially indistinct corpses. It is a mixed society, but the implicit assumption is that the valuable cultural skills came with Caucasoids from the West."
[edit]Cultural exchanges
The presence of Indo-European speakers in the Tarim Basin in the 1st millennium BC suggests that cultural exchanges happened between Indo-European and Chinese populations at a very early date. It has been suggested that such activities as chariot warfare and bronze-making may have been transmitted to the east by these Indo-European nomads.
These theories would go against the idea that the East and West developed their civilizations independent of each other, but suggest, on the contrary that, some form of transmission may have happened.
The supply of jade from the Tarim Basin from ancient times is well excavated, according to Liu (2001): "It is well known that ancient Chinese rulers had a strong attachment to jade. All of the jade items excavated from the tomb of Fuhao of the Shang dynasty, more than 750 pieces, were from Khotan in modern Xinjiang. As early as the mid-first millennium BCE the Yuezhi engaged in the jade trade, of which the major consumers were the rulers of agricultural China."
[edit]Footnotes
^ a b c d e f Mallory & Mair (2000)
^ Saiget, Robert J.. "Caucasians preceded East Asians in basin", The Washington Times, News World Communications, 2005-04-19. Retrieved on 2007-08-20. (English) Archived from the original on 2005-04-20. “A study last year by Jilin University also found that the mummies' DNA had Europoid genes.”
^ Robertson, Benjamin. "China history unravelled by mummies", Al Jazeera English, Aljazeera.net, 2006-05-14. Retrieved on 2007-08-20. (English)
^ Rosof, Libby (1997-09-09). "Penn Researcher Finds Chinese Mummies' Surprising Roots". Almanac 44 (3): 12-13. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
^ Yu, Taishan (2003). A Comprehensive History of Western Regions, 2nd edition, Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Press. ISBN 7-5348-1266-6.
^ Liu, Jianguo (2004). Distinguishing and Correcting the pre-Qin Forged Classics. Xi'an: Shaanxi People's Press. ISBN 7-224-05725-8.
[edit]References
The Mummies of Ürümchi. Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1999). London. Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-36897-4
Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. Jeannine Davis-Kimball with Mona Behan (2002). Warner Books, New York. First Trade Edition 2003. ISBN 0-446-67983-6 (pbk)
Hemphill, Brian E. & Mallory, J.P. (2004), "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", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125: 199ff.
Larsen, Clark Spencer (2002), "Bioarchaeology: The Lives and Lifestyles of Past People", Journal of Archaeological Research 10 (2): 119–166, June 2002.
Li, Shuicheng (1999), "A Discussion of Sino-Western Cultural Contact and Exchange in the Second Millennium BC Based on Recent Archeological Discoveries", Sino-Platonic Papers (no. 97), December 1999.
Light, Nathan (1999a), "Hidden Discourses of Race: Imagining Europeans in China", presented at the Association for Asian Studies conference, Boston. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
Light, Nathan (1999b), "Tabloid Archaeology: Is Television Trivializing Science?", Discovering Archaeology: 98-101, March-April 1999.
Liu, Xinru (2001), "Migration and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan. Interaction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies", Journal of World History 12 (2): 261-292.
Mallory, J. P. & Mair, Victor H. (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson.
Pliny the Elder, The Natural History.
Schurr, Theodore G. (2001), "Tracking Genes Across the Globe: A review of Genes, Peoples, and Languages, by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza.", American Scientist 89 (1), January-February 2001.
[edit]See also
Pazyryk
[edit]External links
The Mummies of Xinjiang by Evan Hadingham DISCOVER Vol. 15 No. 04, April 1994
Collection of Images of the mummies
Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang’s famous mummies (AFP) Khaleej Times Online, 19 April 2005
There's a start......
john
Tarim mummies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia •
The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BC to AD 200. The most remarkable features of these mummies, given the general location of these graves, are the Caucasoid physical type feature the corpses exhibit. The mummies, particularly the early ones, are associated with the presence of the Indo-European Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin. The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which date from 1800–500 BC, 21 of which are Caucasoid—the earliest Caucasoid mummies found in the Tarim basin—and 8 of which are of the same Caucasoid physical type found at Qäwrighul.[1]:237
Contents
[hide]
1 Archeological record
2 Genetic links
3 Posited origins
4 Historical records and associated manuscript
4.1 Tocharians
4.2 Yuezhi
4.3 Roman accounts
5 Controversy
6 Cultural exchanges
7 Footnotes
8 References
9 See also
10 External links
[edit]Archeological record
At the beginning of the 20th century European explorers such as Sven Hedin, Albert von Le Coq and Sir Aurel Stein all recounted their discoveries of desiccated bodies in their search for antiquities in Central Asia.[1]:10 Since then many other mummies have been found and analysed, most of them now displayed in the museums of Xinjiang. Most of these mummies were found on the eastern (around the area of Lopnur, Subeshi near Turfan, Kroran, Kumul) and southern (Khotan, Niya, Qiemo) edge of the Tarim Basin.
The earliest Tarim mummies, found at Qäwrighul and dated to 1800 BC, are of a Caucasoid physical type whose closest affiliation is to the Bronze Age populations of southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and Lower Volga.[1]:237
The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which date from 1100–500 BC, 21 of which are Mongoloid—the earliest Mongoloid mummies found in the Tarim basin—and 8 of which are of the same Caucasoid physical type found at Qäwrighul.[1]:237
The most famous[citation needed] mummies are the tall, red-haired "Chärchän man" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BC); his son (1000 BC), a small 1-year-old baby with blond hair protruding from under a red and blue felt cap, and blue stones in place of the eyes; the "Hami Mummy" (c. 1400–800 BC), a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi" (4th or 3rd century BC), who wore tall pointed hats.
Many of the mummies have been found in very good condition, owing to the dryness of the desert, and the desiccation of the corpses it induced. The mummies share many typical Caucasoid body features (elongated bodies, angular faces, recessed eyes), and many of them have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. It is not known whether their hair has been bleached by internment in salt. Their costumes, and especially textiles, may indicate a common origin with Indo-European neolithic clothing techniques or a common low-level textile technology.[citation needed]
[edit]Genetic links
DNA sequence data[2] shows that at least one mummy had a haplotype characteristic of western Eurasia, confirming the earlier suggestion that the mummies are of at least partial West Asian descent.
A team of Chinese and American researchers working in Sweden tested DNA from 52 separate mummies, including the mummy denoted "Beauty of Loulan." By genetically mapping the mummies' origins, the researchers confirmed the theory that these mummies were of West Asian descent. Victor Mair, a University of Pennsylvania professor and project leader for the team that did the genetic mapping, commented that these studies were:
...extremely important because they link up eastern and western Eurasia at a formative stage of civilization (Bronze Age and early Iron Age) in a much closer way than has ever been done before.[3]
This evidence corroborated the earlier link made between the textiles found with the mummies with early European textile and weave types and the superficial observation that the mummies seemed to have blond and red hair. An earlier study by Jilin University had found a mtDNA haplotype characteristic of Western Eurasian populations[citation needed].
In trying to trace the origins of these peoples Victor Mair's team suggested that these peoples may have arrived in the region by way of the forbidding Pamir Mountains about 5000 years ago.
Needless to say this evidence is considered controversial. It refutes the contemporary nationalist claims of the regional Uighur peoples who claimed to be the indigenous peoples of the Xinjiang, rather than the Chinese Hans. In comparing the DNA to the modern day Uighur peoples, they found some genetic similarities with the mummies, but "no direct links".
About the controversy Mair has stated that:
The new finds are also forcing a reexamination of old Chinese books that describe historical or legendary figures of great height, with deep-set blue or green eyes, long noses, full beards, and red or blond hair. Scholars have traditionally scoffed at these accounts, but it now seems that they may be accurate.[cite this quote]
Chinese scientists were initially hesitant to give up the DNA samples because they were sensitive about the nationalist Uighur claims, and to prevent a pillaging of national monuments by foreigners.
[edit]Posited origins
Physical anthropologists propose the movement of at least two Caucasoid physical types into the Tarim basin, which Mallory & Mair (2000:317–318) associate with the Tocharian and Iranian (Saka) branches of the Indo-European language family, respectively.
B. E. Hemphill's biodistance analysis of cranial metrics (as cited in Larsen 2002 and Schurr 2001) has questioned the identification of the Tarim Basin population as European, noting that the earlier population has close affinities to the Indus Valley population, and the later population with the Oxus River valley population. Because craniometry can produce results which make no sense at all (e.g. the close relationship between Neolithic populations in Russia and Portugal) and therefore lack any historical meaning, any putative genetic relationship must be consistent with geographical plausibility and have the support of other evidence.[1]:236
Han Kangxin (as cited in Mallory & Mair 2000:236–237), who examined the skulls of 302 mummies, found the closest relatives of the earlier Tarim Basin population in the populations of the Afanasevo culture situated immediately north of the Tarim Basin and the Andronovo culture that spanned Kazakhstan and reached southwards into West Central Asia and the Altai.
It is the Afanasevo culture to which Mallory & Mair (2000:294–296, 314–318) trace the earliest Bronze Age settlers of the Tarim and Turpan basins. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Eurasian Steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BC) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization.[1]:260, 294–296, 314–318
Hemphill & Mallory (2004) confirm a second Caucasoid physical type at Alwighul (700–1 BC) and Krorän (AD 200) different from the earlier one found at Qäwrighul (1800 BC) and Yanbulaq (1100–500 BC):
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 BC.
Mallory & Mair (2000:318) associate this later (700 BC–200 AD) Caucasoid physical type with the populations who introduced the Iranian Saka language to the western part of the Tarim basin.
From Libby Rosof (1997) "Penn Researcher Finds Chinese Mummies’ Surprising Roots":
"In examining small bags some of the mummies wore around their necks, Mair’s team found a connection to Iranian culture. The bags, which were buried with some mummies buried between 1000 B.C. to 200-to-300 A.D., contained ephedra, a medicinal shrub used in Zoroastrian religious rituals. “The ephedra indicates that some of these people were almost certainly speaking an Iranian language,” [Mair] said."[4]
Mair concluded (Mair etc al, 2006):
"From the evidence available, we have found that during the first 1,000 years after the Loulan Beauty, the only settlers in the Tarim Basin were Caucasoid. East Asian peoples only began showing up in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin about 3,000 years ago, Mair said, while the Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, largely based in modern day Mongolia, around the year 842."
[edit]Historical records and associated manuscript
[edit]Tocharians
The Indo-European Tocharian languages also have been attested in the same geographical area, and although the first known epigraphic evidence dates to the 6th century CE, the degree of differentiation between Tocharian A and Tocharian B, and the absence of Tocharian language remains beyond that area, tends to indicate that a common Tocharian language existed in the same area during the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Although Tocharian texts have never been found in direct relation with the mummies, their identical geographical location and common non-Chinese origin suggest that the mummies were related to the Tocharians and spoke a similar Indo-European language.
The Tocharian were described as having full beards, deep-set eyes and high noses and with no sign of decline as attestation in the Chinese sources for the past 1,000 years. This was first noted after the Tocharian had came under the steppe nomads and Chinese subjugation. During the 3rd to 4th century CE, the Tocharian reached their height by incorporating adjoining states.[5]:34-57, 77-88, 96-103
[edit]Yuezhi
In the much easterly geographical area, reference to the Yuezhi name in Guanzi was made around 7th century BCE by the Chinese economist Guan Zhong, though the book is generally consider to be a forgery of later generations.[6]:115-127 The contributed author, Guan Zhong described the Yuzhi ??, or Niuzhi ??, as a people from the north-west who supplied jade to the Chinese from the nearby mountains of Yuzhi ?? at Gansu. A large part of the Yuezhi, vanquished by the Xiongnu, were to migrate to southern Asia in the 2nd century BC, and later establish the Kushan Empire in northern India and Afghanistan.
[edit]Roman accounts
Pliny the Elder (, Chap XXIV "Taprobane") reports a curious description of the Seres (in the territories of northwestern China) made by an embassy from Taprobane (Ceylon) to Emperor Claudius, saying that they "exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking", suggesting they may be referring to the ancient Caucasian populations of the Tarim Basin:
"They also informed us that the side of their island (Taprobane) which lies opposite to India is ten thousand stadia in length, and runs in a south-easterly direction--that beyond the Emodian Mountains (Himalayas) they look towards the Serve (Seres), whose acquaintance they had also made in the pursuits of commerce; that the father of Rachias (the ambassador) had frequently visited their country, and that the Seræ always came to meet them on their arrival. These people, they said, exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking, having no language of their own for the purpose of communicating their thoughts. The rest of their information (on the Serae) was of a similar nature to that communicated by our merchants. It was to the effect that the merchandise on sale was left by them upon the opposite bank of a river on their coast, and it was then removed by the natives, if they thought proper to deal on terms of exchange. On no grounds ought luxury with greater reason to be detested by us, than if we only transport our thoughts to these scenes, and then reflect, what are its demands, to what distant spots it sends in order to satisfy them, and for how mean and how unworthy an end!"
[edit]Controversy
The focus by some scholars and writers on the racial or ethnic identity of the Tarim Mummies has been criticised as being motivated by Eurocentrism and Indo-European chauvinism. Light (1999a, 1999b) argues that the Euro-American scholars and their publicists should not get so excited about finding people who look like themselves that they present only evidence for European connections, while neglecting artifacts of a more complex past. He considered the Mysterious Mummies of China, a NOVA/WGBH documentary first aired on PBS January 1999 to be distorted.
Light (1999b) suggests that the documentary treats present-day local Uyghurs as primitives whose history and cultural changes are immaterial: Only their origins matter. Never mentioning that Islamic cultural influences have been strong here for nearly a millennium. He also concludes that the mummies who breached China's fabled isolation 1,000 years earlier than previously thought provide no "startling conclusion." And considered China's "fabled isolation" as a fable.
Light (1999a) "[He] argues he is trying to show the links of East and West, but he does it by keeping them racially separate. In contrast, the graves are full of racially indistinct corpses. It is a mixed society, but the implicit assumption is that the valuable cultural skills came with Caucasoids from the West."
[edit]Cultural exchanges
The presence of Indo-European speakers in the Tarim Basin in the 1st millennium BC suggests that cultural exchanges happened between Indo-European and Chinese populations at a very early date. It has been suggested that such activities as chariot warfare and bronze-making may have been transmitted to the east by these Indo-European nomads.
These theories would go against the idea that the East and West developed their civilizations independent of each other, but suggest, on the contrary that, some form of transmission may have happened.
The supply of jade from the Tarim Basin from ancient times is well excavated, according to Liu (2001): "It is well known that ancient Chinese rulers had a strong attachment to jade. All of the jade items excavated from the tomb of Fuhao of the Shang dynasty, more than 750 pieces, were from Khotan in modern Xinjiang. As early as the mid-first millennium BCE the Yuezhi engaged in the jade trade, of which the major consumers were the rulers of agricultural China."
[edit]Footnotes
^ a b c d e f Mallory & Mair (2000)
^ Saiget, Robert J.. "Caucasians preceded East Asians in basin", The Washington Times, News World Communications, 2005-04-19. Retrieved on 2007-08-20. (English) Archived from the original on 2005-04-20. “A study last year by Jilin University also found that the mummies' DNA had Europoid genes.”
^ Robertson, Benjamin. "China history unravelled by mummies", Al Jazeera English, Aljazeera.net, 2006-05-14. Retrieved on 2007-08-20. (English)
^ Rosof, Libby (1997-09-09). "Penn Researcher Finds Chinese Mummies' Surprising Roots". Almanac 44 (3): 12-13. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
^ Yu, Taishan (2003). A Comprehensive History of Western Regions, 2nd edition, Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Press. ISBN 7-5348-1266-6.
^ Liu, Jianguo (2004). Distinguishing and Correcting the pre-Qin Forged Classics. Xi'an: Shaanxi People's Press. ISBN 7-224-05725-8.
[edit]References
The Mummies of Ürümchi. Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1999). London. Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-36897-4
Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. Jeannine Davis-Kimball with Mona Behan (2002). Warner Books, New York. First Trade Edition 2003. ISBN 0-446-67983-6 (pbk)
Hemphill, Brian E. & Mallory, J.P. (2004), "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", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125: 199ff.
Larsen, Clark Spencer (2002), "Bioarchaeology: The Lives and Lifestyles of Past People", Journal of Archaeological Research 10 (2): 119–166, June 2002.
Li, Shuicheng (1999), "A Discussion of Sino-Western Cultural Contact and Exchange in the Second Millennium BC Based on Recent Archeological Discoveries", Sino-Platonic Papers (no. 97), December 1999.
Light, Nathan (1999a), "Hidden Discourses of Race: Imagining Europeans in China", presented at the Association for Asian Studies conference, Boston. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
Light, Nathan (1999b), "Tabloid Archaeology: Is Television Trivializing Science?", Discovering Archaeology: 98-101, March-April 1999.
Liu, Xinru (2001), "Migration and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan. Interaction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies", Journal of World History 12 (2): 261-292.
Mallory, J. P. & Mair, Victor H. (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson.
Pliny the Elder, The Natural History.
Schurr, Theodore G. (2001), "Tracking Genes Across the Globe: A review of Genes, Peoples, and Languages, by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza.", American Scientist 89 (1), January-February 2001.
[edit]See also
Pazyryk
[edit]External links
The Mummies of Xinjiang by Evan Hadingham DISCOVER Vol. 15 No. 04, April 1994
Collection of Images of the mummies
Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang’s famous mummies (AFP) Khaleej Times Online, 19 April 2005
There's a start......
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Well, thanx John. Not often I see such an informative post.
Gimbutas shows us some curious small square, 4 footed, goat headed bowls from the Lower Danube. 7000 BP. Cucuteni, Petresti, Vinca.
But then the Russians, excavating an Amazon grave in the permafrost, finds the same kind of bowl. Only this time, frozen for 2500 years, the contents are intact: cannabis.
IIRC, it was Herodotus who writes of the Scythians, from this same era, who made little tents, heated like saunas with hot rocks that they took pot into. Thus the feet on the bowls allows them to heat up more slowly and perch on a pile of hot rocks to vaporize the cannabanoids.
The other thing these suanas do is kill lice and bedbugs. If you are naked.
Gimbutas also shows us stone or modeled clay copies of Amanita Muscaria, and a really trippy large bronze mixing bowl that is also in the shape of an emerging Amanita muscaria. BTW: I found some in the woods 3 days ago. You havta let them *TOTALLY* dry out, so I wont be able to try them until the new moon.
So- 6000 years ago, some girls got on the first domestic horses, could ride faster than a warrior could run, and became the Amazons. By 4000 BP some of them made it all the way to China. Taking both Soma and dope with them. Meeting the purveyors of ephedra and opium. Musta been a high time.
Gimbutas shows us some curious small square, 4 footed, goat headed bowls from the Lower Danube. 7000 BP. Cucuteni, Petresti, Vinca.
But then the Russians, excavating an Amazon grave in the permafrost, finds the same kind of bowl. Only this time, frozen for 2500 years, the contents are intact: cannabis.
IIRC, it was Herodotus who writes of the Scythians, from this same era, who made little tents, heated like saunas with hot rocks that they took pot into. Thus the feet on the bowls allows them to heat up more slowly and perch on a pile of hot rocks to vaporize the cannabanoids.
The other thing these suanas do is kill lice and bedbugs. If you are naked.
Gimbutas also shows us stone or modeled clay copies of Amanita Muscaria, and a really trippy large bronze mixing bowl that is also in the shape of an emerging Amanita muscaria. BTW: I found some in the woods 3 days ago. You havta let them *TOTALLY* dry out, so I wont be able to try them until the new moon.
So- 6000 years ago, some girls got on the first domestic horses, could ride faster than a warrior could run, and became the Amazons. By 4000 BP some of them made it all the way to China. Taking both Soma and dope with them. Meeting the purveyors of ephedra and opium. Musta been a high time.
Any god watching me hasta be bored, and needs to get a life.
Ishtar and Daybrown -
Well, I finally found Eliade's book, sitting right out in the open. Nevermind......
Anyway; Bollingen Series, second printing, paperback, 1974.
Page 400 (although other references pop up).
" The importance of the intoxication sought from hemp is further confirmed by the extremely wide dissemination of the Iranian term through Central Asia. In a number of Ugrian languages Iranian word for hemp, bangha, has come to designate both the pre-eminently shamanic mushroom Agaricus muscarius (which is used as a means of intoxication before or during the Seance) and intoxication; compare, for example, the Voghul pankh, "mushroom" (Agaricus muscarius), Mordvinian panga, pango, and Cheremis pongo, "mushroom". In northern Vogul, pankh also means "intoxication, drunkenness." The hymns to the divinities refer to ecstacy induced by intoxication by mushrooms.
Eliade's "Shamanism" is a general text. I haven't looked into specific papers/observations from which he drew his conclusions.
john
postscriptum -
This, of course, leaves begging the Elusinian Mysteries and the possible connection to Very Early Christianity, i.e. pre j.christ, fr. example the "Nag Hammadi Gospels", perhaps Sutras. Yes?
j
Well, I finally found Eliade's book, sitting right out in the open. Nevermind......
Anyway; Bollingen Series, second printing, paperback, 1974.
Page 400 (although other references pop up).
" The importance of the intoxication sought from hemp is further confirmed by the extremely wide dissemination of the Iranian term through Central Asia. In a number of Ugrian languages Iranian word for hemp, bangha, has come to designate both the pre-eminently shamanic mushroom Agaricus muscarius (which is used as a means of intoxication before or during the Seance) and intoxication; compare, for example, the Voghul pankh, "mushroom" (Agaricus muscarius), Mordvinian panga, pango, and Cheremis pongo, "mushroom". In northern Vogul, pankh also means "intoxication, drunkenness." The hymns to the divinities refer to ecstacy induced by intoxication by mushrooms.
Eliade's "Shamanism" is a general text. I haven't looked into specific papers/observations from which he drew his conclusions.
john
postscriptum -
This, of course, leaves begging the Elusinian Mysteries and the possible connection to Very Early Christianity, i.e. pre j.christ, fr. example the "Nag Hammadi Gospels", perhaps Sutras. Yes?
j
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Silk Road
That must've been some party. No wonder the Silk Road became so well-traveled. They were running drugs!So- 6000 years ago, some girls got on the first domestic horses, could ride faster than a warrior could run, and became the Amazons. By 4000 BP some of them made it all the way to China. Taking both Soma and dope with them. Meeting the purveyors of ephedra and opium. Musta been a high time.
Natural selection favors the paranoid