Tarim mummies

The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE,^[1][2][3] with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BCE.^[4][5] The Tarim population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived circa 2000 BCE in what was formerly a freshwater environment, which has now become desertified.^[6]

A genomic study published in 2021 found that these early mummies (dating from 2,135 to 1,623 BCE) had high levels of

At the beginning of the 20th century, European explorers such as

Notable mummies are the tall, red-haired "Chärchän man" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BCE); his son (1000 BCE), a 1-year-old baby with brown hair protruding from under a red and blue felt cap, with two stones positioned over its eyes; the "Hami Mummy" (c. 1400–800 BCE), a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi" (4th or 3rd century BCE), who wore 2-foot-long (0.61 m) black felt conical hats with a flat brim.^[16] Also found at Subeshi was a man with traces of a surgical operation on his abdomen; the incision is sewn up with sutures made of horsehair.^[17]

Many of the mummies have been found in very good condition, owing to the dryness of the desert and the desiccation it produced in the corpses. The mummies share many typical Caucasian body features, 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. Their costumes, and especially

It has been asserted that the textiles found with the mummies are of an early European textile type based on close similarities to fragmentary textiles found in salt mines in Austria, dating from the second millennium BCE. Anthropologist Irene Good, a specialist in early Eurasian textiles, noted the woven diagonal twill pattern indicated the use of a rather sophisticated loom and said that the textile is "the easternmost known example of this kind of weaving technique".^[17]

The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which dated from 1100 to 500 BCE, 21 of which are asian—the earliest asian mummies found in the Tarim Basin—and eight of which are of the same Caucasian physical type as found at Qäwrighul.^[2]

Genetic studies

In 1995, Mair claimed that "the earliest mummies in the Tarim Basin were exclusively

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.[20]

In 2007 the Chinese government allowed a National Geographic Society team headed by Spencer Wells to examine the mummies' DNA. Wells was able to extract undegraded DNA from the internal tissues. The scientists extracted enough material to suggest the Tarim Basin was continually inhabited from 2000 BCE to 300 BCE and preliminary results indicate the people, rather than having a single origin, originated from Europe, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and other regions yet to be determined.^[21]

A 2008 study by

The geographic location of this admixing is unknown, although south Siberia is likely.[21]

Chinese historian Ji Xianlin says China "supported and admired" research by foreign experts into the mummies. "However, within China a small group of ethnic separatists have taken advantage of this opportunity to stir up trouble and are acting like buffoons. Some of them have even styled themselves the descendants of these ancient 'white people' with the aim of dividing the motherland. But these perverse acts will not succeed."^[27] Barber addresses these claims by noting that "The Loulan Beauty is scarcely closer to 'Turkic' in her anthropological type than she is to Han Chinese. The body and facial forms associated with Turks and Mongols began to appear in the Tarim cemeteries only in the first millennium BCE, fifteen hundred years after this woman lived."^[28] Due to the "fear of fuelling separatist currents", the Xinjiang museum, regardless of dating, displays all their mummies, both Tarim and Han, together.^[27]

The School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, China, analyzed in 2021 13 individuals from the Tarim basin, dated to c. 2100-1700 BC, and assigned 2 to

Mal'ta and Afontova Gora populations), despite their distance in time (around 14,000 years).^[33] More than any other ancient populations, the Tarim mummies can be considered as "the best representatives" of the Ancient North Eurasians.^[33]

On the other hand, linguistics professor Ronald Kim argues that the amount of divergence between the attested Tocharian languages necessitates that Proto-Tocharian must have preceded their attestation by a millennium or so. This would coincide with the timeframe during which the Tarim Basin culture was in the region.[39]

B. E. Hemphill's biodistance analysis of

From the evidence available, we have found that during the first 1,000 years after the

Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, largely based in modern day Mongolia, around the year 842.^[27]

Hemphill & Mallory (2004) note the existance of an additional physical type at Alwighul (700–1 BCE) and Krorän (200 CE) different from the earlier one found at Qäwrighul (1800 BCE) and Yanbulaq (1100–500 BCE), while finding no evidence of significant Steppe-related contributions to these remains:

The results fail to demonstrate close phenetic affinities between the early inhabitants of Qa¨wrighul and any of the proposed sources for immigrants to the Tarim Basin. The absence of close affinities to outside populations renders it unlikely that the human remains recovered from Qa¨wrighul represent the unadmixed remains of colonists from the Afanasievo or Andronovo cultures of the steppe lands, or inhabitants of the urban centers of the Oxus civilization of Bactria. ... 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 BCE. ... Nevertheless, there is no support for the hypothesis that steppe populations contributed significantly to Bronze Age populations of the Tarim Ba-sin. Despite numerous similarities between Afanasievo and Andronovo artifacts and Bronze Ageartifacts from Xinjiang (Bunker, 1998; Chen andHiebert, 1995; Kuzmina, 1998; Mei and Shell, 1998;Peng, 1998), all analyses of phenetic relationships consistently reveal a profound phenetic separation between steppe samples and the samples from the Tarim Basin (Qa¨wrighul, Alwighul, and Krora¨n).

BMAC culture, or East Asian populations further East.^[45]

Historical records and associated texts

Chinese sources

Main articles: Western Regions and Protectorate of the Western Regions

Western Regions (Hsi-yu; Chinese: 西域; pinyin: Xīyù; Wade–Giles: Hsi¹-yü⁴) is the historical name in China, between the 3rd century BCE and 8th century CE for regions west of Yumen Pass, including the Tarim and Central Asia.^[46]

Some of the peoples of the Western Regions were described in Chinese sources as having full beards, red or blond hair, deep-set blue or green eyes and high noses.

city states of the Tarim reached the height of their political power during the 3rd to 4th centuries CE,^[48] although this may actually indicate an increase in Chinese involvement in the Tarim, following the collapse of the Kushan Empire

.

The Rouzhi

Main article:

Rouzhi

Reference to the

Rouzhi name was possibly made around 7th century BCE by the Chinese philosopher Guan Zhong, though his book is generally considered to be a later forgery.^{[49]: 115–127} Guan Zhong described a group called either the Yuzhi 禺氏 or Niuzhi 牛氏 as a people from the north-west who supplied jade to the Chinese from the nearby mountains of Yuzhi 禺氏 at Gansu

.

After the Rouzhi experienced a series of major defeats at the hands of the Xiongnu, during the 2nd century BCE, a group known as the Greater Rouzhi migrated to Bactria, where they established the Kushan Empire. By the 1st Century CE, the Kushan Empire had expanded significantly and may have annexed part of the Tarim Basin.

Tocharian languages

Main article: Tocharian languages

The degree of differentiation between the language known to modern scholars as

epigraphic

evidence dates to the 6th century CE.

Although the Tarim mummies preceded the Tocharian texts by around 2,000 years, their shared geographical location and links to Western Eurasia have led many scholars to suggest that the mummies were related to the Tocharian peoples.

Arguments for cultural transmission from West to East

The possible presence of speakers of Indo-European languages in the Tarim Basin by about 2000 BCE^[37] could, if confirmed, be interpreted as evidence that cultural exchanges occurred among Indo-European and Chinese populations at a very early date. It has been suggested that such techniques as chariot warfare and bronze-making may have been transmitted to the east by these Indo-European nomads.^[50] Mallory and Mair also note that: "Prior to c. 2000 BC, finds of metal artifacts in China are exceedingly few, simple and, puzzlingly, already made of alloyed copper (and hence questionable)."

Xiaohe cemetery

While stressing that the argument as to whether bronze technology travelled from China to the West or that "the earliest bronze technology in China was stimulated by contacts with western steppe cultures", is far from settled in scholarly circles, they suggest that the evidence so far favours the latter scenario.

Erlitou (Wade–Giles: Erh-li-t'ou) period, which some historians argue places it within the range of dates controlled by the Shang dynasty.^[54]

Subeshi cemetery

Others believe the Erlitou sites belong to the preceding

Western Zhou rule.^[56] Though that provides a concise frame of reference, it overlooks the continued importance of bronze in Chinese metallurgy and culture. Since that was significantly later than the discovery of bronze in Mesopotamia, bronze technology could have been imported, rather than being discovered independently in China. However, there is reason to believe that bronzework developed inside China, separately from outside influence.^[57][58]

The Chinese official

Ferghana and Daxia

in Bactria.

The supplying of

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."

Famous mummies

The Princess of Xiaohe

The "Princess of Xiaohe", dated c. 1800 BCE

The Princess of Xiaohe (Chinese: 小河公主) was unearthed and also named by the archaeologists of Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology at Xiaohe Cemetery Tomb M11, 102 km west of Loulan, Nop Nur, Xinjiang in 2003.^[61] She has flaxen hair and long eyelashes and was wrapped in a white wool cloak with tassels and wore a felt hat, string skirt, and fur-lined leather boots. She was buried with wooden pins and three small pouches of ephedra and twigs and branches of ephedra were placed beside the body.^[62] She is not permanently exhibited in any museum.

The Beauty of Loulan

The

archaeologists working on a film about the Silk Road. The mummy was discovered near Lop Nur. She was buried 3 feet beneath the ground. The mummy was extremely well preserved because of the dry climate and the preservative properties of salt.^[64] She was wrapped in a woolen cloth; the cloth was made of two separate pieces and was not large enough to cover her entire body, thereby leaving her ankles exposed. The Beauty of Loulan was surrounded by funerary gifts.^[65] The Beauty of Loulan has been dated back to approximately 1800 BCE.^[66]

The Beauty of Loulan lived around 1800 BCE, until about the age of 45, when she died. Her cause of death is likely due to lung failure from ingesting a large amount of sand, charcoal, and dust.^[64] According to Elizabeth Barber, she probably died in the winter because of her provisions against the cold.^[65] The rough shape of her clothes and the lice in her hair suggest she lived a difficult life.^[64]

The Beauty of Loulan's hair colour has been described as

weft

in tightly during weaving." She possesses a "neatly woven bag or soft basket". Grains of wheat were discovered inside the bag.^[65]

A 23-poem sequence on the Beauty of Loulan appears in the Canadian poet Kim Trainor's Karyotype (2015).

Other mummies

• 
  Another "Loulan Beauty", excavated in 2004. Buried at the age of 25, she is 3800 years old
• 
  Mummy from

  Xiaohe cemetery
• 
  The "Cherchen Man", dated c. 1000 BCE
• 
  A wife of the "Cherchen Man", dated c. 1000 BCE

Yingpan man

The

Sogdian or an elite member of the Shanshan Kingdom.^[70][71]

Controversies

According to Ed Wong's New York Times article from 2008, Mair was actually prohibited from leaving the country with 52 genetic samples. However, a Chinese scientist clandestinely sent him half a dozen, on which an Italian geneticist performed tests.^[1]

Since then China has prohibited foreign scientists from conducting research on the mummies. As Wong says, "Despite the political issues, excavations of the grave sites are continuing."^[1]

See also

• Pazyryk culture
• Pontic–Caspian steppe
• Dzungarian Gate
• Gushi culture
• Tocharian clothing
• Kurgan hypothesis

Footnotes

1. ^
   ISSN 0362-4331
   . Retrieved 10 May 2019.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 237.
3. ^ Wade, Nicholas (15 March 2010). "A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
4. ^ ^{a b} School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, China, (2021). "The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies", in ENA, European Nucleotide Archive.
5. Yanbulark cemetery
   in Xinjiang, but individuals with Mongoloid features are clearly dominant. The above evidence is enough to show that, starting around 2,000 B.C., some so-called primitive Caucasians expanded eastward to the Xinjiang area as far as the area around Hami and Lop Nur. By the end of the second millennium, another group of people from Central Asia started to move over the Pamirs and gradually dispersed in southern Xinjiang. These western groups mixed with local Mongoloids resulting in an amalgamation of culture and race in middle Xinjiang east to the Tianshan."
6. S2CID 240072156
   . The basin holds several intact Bronze Age cemeteries of a founding population known as the agropastoral Xiaohe culture, which formed around 2100 BC in what were then freshwater environments (the Bronze Age spanned from about 3000 to 1000 BC).
7. ^ Zhang 2021, "Using qpAdm, we modelled the Tarim Basin individuals as a mixture of two ancient autochthonous Asian genetic groups: the ANE, represented by an Upper Palaeolithic individual from the Afontova Gora site in the upper Yenisei River region of Siberia (AG3) (about 72%), and ancient Northeast Asians, represented by Baikal_EBA (about 28%) (Supplementary Data 1E and Fig. 3a). Tarim_EMBA2 from Beifang can also be modelled as a mixture of Tarim_EMBA1 (about 89%) and Baikal_EBA (about 11%).".
8. PMID 36576953
   . Combining genomic and proteomic evidence, researchers revealed that these earliest residents in the Tarim Basin carried genetic ancestry inherited from local Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, carried no steppe-related ancestry, but consumed milk products, indicating communications of persistence practices independent from genetic exchange.
9. ^ ^{a b} Zhang 2021.
10. ^ Zhang 2021, "Our results do not support previous hypotheses for the origin of the Tarim mummies, who were argued to be Proto-Tocharian-speaking pastoralists descended from the Afanasievo, or to have originated among the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex or Inner Asian Mountain Corridor cultures. Instead, although Tocharian may have been plausibly introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants during the Early Bronze Age, we find that the earliest Tarim Basin cultures appear to have arisen from a genetically isolated local population that adopted neighbouring pastoralist and agriculturalist practices, which allowed them to settle and thrive along the shifting riverine oases of the Taklamakan Desert.".
11. Cheshi
    (Chü-shih) state known from Chinese historical sources (Sinor, 1990). Archaeological and historical data attest it as society with a developed agro-pastoral economy, that existed in and north of the Turfan Basin (Fig. 1) during the first millennium BC. The Subeixi weaponry, horse gear and garments (Mallory and Mair, 2000; Lü, 2001) resemble those of the Pazyryk culture (Molodin and Polos'mak, 2007), suggesting contacts between Subeixi and the Scythians living in the Altai Mountains.
12. ^ Mallory, J. P. (2015). "The Problem of Tocharian Origins: An Archaeological Perspective" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers: 24.
13. Yanbulaq
    both Europoid and Mongoloid mummies have been found together, also indicates some degree of interaction between existing farming populations and newly arrived nomadic migrants from the West.
14. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 10.
15. ^ "A Craniometric Investigation of The Bronze Age Settlement of Xinjiang - Important | PDF". Scribd. Retrieved 4 April 2023. The results fail to demonstrate close phenetic affinities between the early inhabitants of Qa¨wrighul and any of the proposed sources for immigrants to the Tarim Basin. The absence of close affinities to outside populations renders it unlikely that the human remains recovered from Qa¨wrighul represent the unadmixed remains of colonists from the Afanasievo or Andronovo cultures of the steppe lands, or inhabitants of the urban centers of the Oxus civilization of Bactria.
16. ^ Though modern Westerners tend to identify this type of hat as the headgear of a witch, there is evidence that these pointed hats were widely worn by both women and men in some Central Asian tribes. For instance, the Persian king Darius recorded a victory over the "Sakas of the pointed hats". The Subeshi headgear is likely an ethnic badge or a symbol of position in the society.
17. ^ ^{a b} "The Mummies of Xinjiang". Discover. 1 April 1994.
18. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.2004.00203.x
    .
19. S2CID 162580662
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20. ^ Mair, Victor H. (1995). "Mummies of the Tarim Basin". Archaeology. 48 (2): 28–35; the quote appears on page 30 of this article.
21. ^
    PMID 20163704
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22. S2CID 1636381
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23. ^
    PMID 26153446
    .
24. ^ Li, 2010
25. ^ 中国北方古代人群Y染色体遗传多样性研究 [Study on Genetic Diversity of Y-chromosome in Ancient Inhabitants of Northern China] (PhD) (in Chinese). Jilin University. 2012.
26. S2CID 205337212
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27. ^ ^{a b c} Coonan, Clifford (August 28, 2006). "A meeting of civilisations: The mystery of China's celtic mummies". The Independent. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
28. ^ Barber 1999, p. 72.
29. ^ "Extended Data. Table 1. A summary of the Bronze Age Xinjiang individuals reported in this study". Nature.
30. ^ Zhang 2021, "To understand this mixed genetic profile, we used qpAdm to explore admixture models of the Dzungarian groups with Tarim_EMBA1 or a terminal Pleistocene individual (AG3) from the Siberian site of Afontova Gora31, as a source (Supplementary Data 1D). AG3 is a distal representative of the ANE ancestry and shows a high affinity with Tarim_EMBA1.".
31. ^ "Western China's mysterious mummies were local descendants of ice age ancestors". Science.org.
32. ^ Zhang 2021, "Using qpAdm, we modelled the Tarim Basin individuals as a mixture of two ancient autochthonous Asian genetic groups: the ANE, represented by an Upper Palaeolithic individual from the Afontova Gora site in the upper Yenisei River region of Siberia (AG3) (about 72%), and ancient Northeast Asians, represented by Baikal_EBA (about 28%)".
33. ^ ^{a b} Zhang 2021, "The Tarim mummies are among only a few known Holocene populations that derive the majority of their ancestry from Pleistocene ANE groups, who once made up the huntergatherer populations of southern Siberia, and which are represented by individual genomes from the archaeological sites of Mal'ta (MA-1)29 and Afontova Gora (AG3). (...) The Tarim mummies are currently the best representative of the pre-pastoralist ANE-related population that once inhabited Central Asia and southern Siberia (Extended Data Fig. 2A), even though Tarim_EMBA1 postdates these populations in time.".
34. ^ Shan-Shan Dai, Xierzhatijiang Sulaiman, Jainagul Isakova, Wei-Fang Xu, Najmudinov Tojiddin Abdulloevich, Manilova Elena Afanasevna, Khudoidodov Behruz Ibrohimovich, Xi Chen, Wei-Kang Yang, Ming-Shan Wang, Quan-Kuan Shen, Xing-Yan Yang, Yong-Gang Yao, Almaz A Aldashev, Abdusattor Saidov, Wei Chen, Lu-Feng Cheng, Min-Sheng Peng, Ya-Ping Zhang (25 August 2022). "The Genetic Echo of the Tarim Mummies in Modern Central Asians". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2022-12-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
35. ^ Zhang 2021, "We modelled the Tarim Basin individuals as a mixture of two ancient autochthonous Asian genetic groups: the ANE, represented by an Upper Palaeolithic individual from the Afontova Gora site in the upper Yenisei River region of Siberia (AG3) (about 72%), and ancient Northeast Asians, represented by Baikal_EBA (about 28%)".
36. ^ Zhang 2021: "The Tarim mummies are among only a few known Holocene populations that derive the majority of their ancestry from Pleistocene ANE groups, who once made up the huntergatherer populations of southern Siberia, and which are represented by individual genomes from the archaeological sites of Mal'ta (MA-1)29 and Afontova Gora (AG3). (...) The Tarim mummies are currently the best representative of the pre-pastoralist ANE-related population that once inhabited Central Asia and southern Siberia (Extended Data Fig. 2A), even though Tarim_EMBA1 postdates these populations in time."
37. ^ ^{a b} Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 317–318.
38. ^ Barber 1999, p. 119.
39. ISBN 978-0-08-044299-0
    .
40. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 236.
41. ^ "A Craniometric Investigation of The Bronze Age Settlement of Xinjiang - Important | PDF". Scribd. Retrieved 2024-04-08. In fact, the early sample from westernChina, Qa¨wrighul (QAW), is identified as possessing closer affinities to the two samples from Harappa(HAR and CEMH)
42. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 236–237.
43. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 260, 294–296, 314–318.
44. ^ Zhang 2021, "The Tarim mummies' so-called Western physical features are probably due to their connection to the Pleistocene ANE gene pool".
45. ^ "A Craniometric Investigation of The Bronze Age Settlement of Xinjiang - Important | PDF". Scribd. Retrieved 2023-04-04. The results fail to demonstrate close phenetic affinities between the early inhabitants of Qa¨wrighul and any of the proposed sources for immigrants to the Tarim Basin. The absence of close affinities to outside populations renders it unlikely that the human remains recovered from Qa¨wrighul represent the unadmixed remains of colonists from the Afanasievo or Andronovo cultures of the steppe lands, or inhabitants of the urban centers of the Oxus civilization of Bactria.
46. ^ Tikhvinskiĭ, Sergeĭ Leonidovich; Perelomov, Leonard Sergeevich (1981). China and her neighbours, from ancient times to the Middle Ages: a collection of essays. Progress Publishers. p. 124.
47. ^ Mair, Victor H. (March–April 1995). "Mummies of the Tarim Basin". Archaeology. 48 (2): 28–35 (30).
48. ^ Yu (2003), pp. 34–57, 77–88, 96–103.
49. ISBN 7-224-05725-8
50. ^ Baumer (2000), p. 28.
51. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, p. 327–328.
52. ISBN 978-90-481-9412-4
    .
53. ISBN 0-8160-4640-9
    .
54. ^ Chang, K. C.: "Studies of Shang Archaeology", pp. 6–7, 1. Yale University Press, 1982.
55. ^ Chang, K. C.: "Studies of Shang Archaeology", p. 1. Yale University Press, 1982.
56. ^ "Teaching Chinese Archaeology, Part Two — NGA". Nga.gov. Archived from the original on 28 May 2010. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
57. ^ Li-Liu; The Chinese Neolithic, Cambridge University Press, 2005
58. ^ Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Bronze Age of China Heilbrunn Timeline Retrieved May 13, 2010
59. ^ The Kingdom of Anxi
60. ^ Silk Road, North China, C. Michael Hogan, The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham (2007)
61. ^ "Expedition Magazine - Penn Museum". www.penn.museum. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
62. ^ "The Eternal Mummy Princesses". Discover Magazine. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
63. ISBN 978-1-137-52297-9. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
64. ^
    Washington Post. Archived from the original
    on 4 August 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
65. ^ ^{a b c d e} Barber 1999, pp. 71–87
66. ^ "Ancient Mummies of the Tarim Basin | Expedition Magazine". www.penn.museum. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
67. ^ Anderson, Matthew (2012). "The "Silk Roads" in Time and Space: Migrations, Motifs, and Materials" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers: 96–97.
68. ^ "Beauty of Kroran (Book description)".
69. ^ Mair, V. H. (2010). The mummies of east central Asia. Expedition, 52(3), 23-32.
70. ISBN 978-1-350-18130-4
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71. PMID 35027587
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• Hemphill, Brian E.;
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• Light, Nathan (1999a). "Hidden Discourses of Race: Imagining Europeans in China". Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
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External links

• Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? pdf
• High-quality images of Tarim-basin mummies
• Images of the Tocharian mummies Includes the face of the "Beauty of Loulan" as reconstructed by an artist.
• "The Takla Makan Mummies". PBS. Retrieved 17 January 2008.
• Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang's famous mummies (AFP) Khaleej Times Online, 19 April 2005
• The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn't Care to Listen To The New York Times, 18 November 2008
• 'A Host of Mummies, A Forest of Secrets', Nicholas Wade, The New York Times, 15 March 2010.

40°20′11″N 88°40′21″E / 40.336453°N 88.672422°E / 40.336453; 88.672422