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The Tarim mummies are a series of Caucasoid Mummies which have been excavated in the Tarim Basin (Eastern Central Asia , today the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic Of China ), and dated to the 2nd and 1st Millennium BC . These mummies give support to the idea of migrations of speakers of Indo-European Languages at a very early period, suggesting the possibility of cultural exchange with the Chinese world since around 1000 BC . ARCHEOLOGICAL RECORD The first mummies were found at the beginning of the 20th Century , through the expeditions of Europeans into Central Asia, in particular by the explorer Sir Aurel Stein . Since then many other mummies have been found and analysed, most of them being displayed in the museums of Xinjiang. Most of these Europoid mummies were found on the southern part of the Tarim Basin ( Khotan , Niya , Cherchen ) and in the eastern parts around the area of Lopnur ( Subeshi near Turfan , Kroran , Qumul ). 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. They share Europoid or Caucasoid body features (slender, elongated bodies, angular faces, recessed eyes), and many of them have their hair 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 interment in salt. Their costumes, and especially Textiles , may indicate a common origin with European Neolithic clothing techniques or a common low-level textile technology. The most famous mummies are the tall, red-haired "Ur-David" or the "Cherchen man"; his son, 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 "Hammi Mummy"; a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi", who wore tall pointed hats. 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 l000 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,” {Link without Title} said." A recent article (Hemphill and Mallory, 2004) reaches the following conclusions: "This study confirms the assertion of Han {Link without Title} 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." HISTORICAL RECORDS Bai people From the 1st-millennium sources, ancient Chinese sources describe the existence of "white people with long hair" (The Bai people of the Shanhai Jing) on their northwestern borders. They had trade relations with them, and seemed to have purchased Jade from them. There is possibility that these "Bai people" correspond to the Tarim mummies. Yuezhi In the same geographical area, reference to the , 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." (Liu (2001), pp. 267-268). A large part of the Yuezhi, vanquished by the Xiong Nu , were to migrate to southern Asia in the 2nd century BC, and later found the Kushan Empire in northern India . Roman accounts Pliny reports a curious description of the Seres (in the territories of northwestern China) made by an embassy from Taprobane 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!" 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. 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. REFERENCES
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