The Tarim Mummies were the last of the Paleo-Siberians
The paper that reported on the data from the famous “Tarim Mummies” is out. If you don’t have a good grasp of the alphabet soup of ancient early Holocene populations, […]
The battle for the soul of the Heart of Asia
Kumārajīva was one of the early translators of the Buddhist canon into Chinese. His father’s lineage was reputedly Indian, while his mother was from the elite of the city of Kucha, on the northern edge of the Tarim basin. It was one of the cities where a form of Tocharian was spoken. This enigmatic Indo-European […]
No Romans needed to explain Chinese blondes
Uyghur boy from Kashgar
Every few years a story crops up about “European-looking” people in northwest China who claim to be of Roman origin. A “lost legion” so to speak. I’ll admit that I found the stories interesting, amusing, if implausible, years ago. But now it’s just getting ridiculous. This is almost like the “vanishing blonde” […]