July 09, 2004
Origin of Yanbulaq Inhabitants
See also A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang and Genes, language, and culture: an example from the tarim basin.
AAPA 2004
East of Eden, west of Cathay: An investigation of Bronze Age interactions along the Great Silk Road.
B.E. Hemphill.
The Great Silk Road has long been known as a conduit for contacts between East and West. Until recently, these interactions were believed to date no earlier than the second century B.C. However, recent discoveries in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang (western China) suggest that initial contact may have occurred during the first half of the second millennium B.C. The site of Yanbulaq has been offered as empirical evidence for direct physical contact between Eastern and Western populations, due to architectural, agricultural, and metallurgical practices like those from the West, ceramic vessels like those from the East, and human remains identified as encompassing both Europoid and Mongoloid physical types.
Eight cranial measurements from 30 Aeneolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern samples, encompassing 1505 adults from the Russian steppe, China, Central Asia, Iran, Tibet, Nepal and the Indus Valley were compared to test whether those inhabitants of Yanbulaq identified as Europoid and Mongoloid exhibit closest phenetic affinities to Russian steppe and Chinese samples, respectively. Differences between samples were compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity were assessed with cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis.
Results indicate that, despite identification as Europoid and Mongoloid, inhabitants of Yanbulaq exhibit closest affinities to one another. No one recovered from Yanbulaq exhibits affinity to Russian steppe samples. Rather, the people of Yanbulaq possess closest affinities to other Bronze Age Tarim Basin dwellers, intermediate affinities to residents of the Indus Valley, and only distant affinities to Chinese and Tibetan samples.
Posted by Dienekes at July 9, 2004 08:19 PM | PermaLinkHas anyone been able to extract Nuclear DNA or mtDNA from the mummies? I took a DNA test recently and found that a Uighur (Uygur) in Xinjiang province was a one step mutation away from me. I am Irish and R1b, and would be interested in knowing if anyone else of European descent (especially Western Europe) has tested closely to any Uighurs - the descendants of the Tocharians who remained in the Tarim basin.
BTW, since the main Tocharian nation fled the Tarim basin and established the Kushan empire in Afghanistan & Pakistan, I would be interested in anyone who matched to this area also, particularly among the Hazara, who although they claim Mongol descent, are 45% R1b, I believe.
I think the proto-Celts and the proto-Tocharians must have lived close together in Central Europe and split, one going West and the other going a long, long way East.
Cheers,
Paul