Journal of Eurasian Studies - EPA

April‐June 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 2.
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2. Mallory and Mair are also quick to point out that the Uyghurs, who moved to Xinjiang from the
Baikal area in 840, show marked physical resemblance to the ancient Tarim Basin populations, and thus
they can be considered, at least in part, the direct descendants of these early Xinjiang groups (Mallory &
Mair, 250‐251). The authors follow this line of thought and conveniently lump members of the Central
Asian Europids and Western European Europids into the ambiguous “Caucasoid”, “Europoid” or
“Western” categories.
Chinese historical records describe the appearance of the ancestors of other Turkic language speakers
— such as the Kirghiz, Kazak, and Salar — who since ancient times inhabited Siberia. These peoples live
in Xinjiang and other areas of Central Asia even today. The Tang dynasty (618‐907) history book recorded
that “The Jiankun (Chinese term for ‘Kirgiz’ from the Tang period) are tall, have red hair, white skin, and
green eyes,” (Ouyang, l975: 6147). This record suggests that these physical features were by no means
possessed only by Western or Northern Europeans, or as is supposed even today, by the
“Indo‐European” Tocharians (see New York Times article above).
In Ma’s 1981 work entitled Chinese Minority Nationalities (pp. 209‐210), we read, ʺAcording to the Shiji
and the Han Shu (ca.200 BC‐200 AD), the Gekun (or Jiankun=Kirghiz) lived at the upper reaches of the
Yenisey River; they are the ancestors of todayʹs Kirghiz people.” The upper Yenisey River area was settled
as early as the Upper Paleolithic by ancient Cro‐Magnoids who populated both Europe and Asia, and
who later formed part of the geographic area of today’s East European and Central Asian Afanasievo
(2500‐1500 BC) and Andronovo (1700‐1200 BC) cultures (Elisseeff l972, 9‐10). The members of these
Bronze Age cultures however do not physically resemble Western European populations. It is the
members of these cultures whom the early Tarim Basin and Turkic populations, resemble most closely
(Han l986). Again, the Siberian populations’ similarity to the Tarim basin population clearly negates any
direct or indirect Western European migration.
The continuity of this population into modern times, as Izmagulov found, again greatly minimizes the
probability of migrations from farther west. This conclusion also hold true for the Tarim Basin, as shown
by recent genetic findings. In the abstract of a paper by Thornton and Schurr, it is stated that,
“While the genetic history of the modern peoples of a particular region is not necessarily
related to their prehistoric antecedents, it is argued that the Tarim Basin experienced a
surprising cultural and biological continuity despite immigration from both east and
west into Xinjiang Province.” (Thornton/Schurr 2004:83‐106).
Blurring the distinction between Central Asian Europoid and European Europoid, as Mallory and Mair
do, distorts the history of the entire Tarim Basin, if not the prehistory of Central Asia.
3. The authors Mallory and Mair caution, “...we know so little about the DNA of all the peoples across
Eurasia” (p 246). However, they persist with describing their DNA analysis “results.” Disappointingly the
DNA analysis, from whence we would expect definitive answers, in fact turns up few reliable results.
As it happens, of the eleven skin samples collected from various Tarim Basin mummies by the
geneticist Paolo Francalacci, Chinese authorities allowed only two samples to be taken out of China for
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