Tales of the Dead
Deciphering the Tarim Basin Mummies
The Tarim Basin is China’s largest inland basin covering an area of 530,000 square kilometers at an altitude of 800 to 1,300 meters. Located south of Xinjiang Uyghur in an independent territory between the Tianshan Mountains, Kunlun Mountains and Arjin Mountains. With annual precipitation less than 100 millimeters, the climate is extremely dry and the rainfall is less than 50 millimeters for most of time. [1] 
Despite formidable conditions this area has been for thousands of years an important crossroad between the eastern and western parts of Eurasia known as the silk road. Through satellite images mapping the main routes of the Silk Road in this region it is evident that all three routes along the North rim and South rim circumvent the Taklimakan Desert, which is situated in the center of what is the Tarim River Basin. This indicates that this region would have experienced heavy traffic in trade and cultural exchanges. Trade must be determined as a factor in the unusual circumstances by which burial sites containing the remains of Caucasoid individuals arrived in China, however it does not account for the age of the mummies dated to the 1st and 2nd millennia BCE, nine hundred years before documented interaction with the east. The Tarim Basin mummies defy accepted assumptions giving evidence of western European contact with China at a much earlier period. Archeological evidence in artifacts located at the burial grounds further challenges historians and Chines history posing the possibility of entire European communities within China as early as four thousand years ago altering ideas of the origins of the original settlers. It is the purpose of this research through modern finds, known ancient trade routes and linguistic studies to investigate an initial time period of exchange and of greater interest the language development that connects Indo-Europeans to the Tarim Basin. It is the premise of this research that through collective overview of the DNA findings, archeological evidence and language studies a shared lineage between the Proto-Indo-Europeans and Proto-Tokharians will be identified within ancient Xianjaing, china.
In 1970 Wang Binghu China’ leading archeologist, Wang Binghua began a systematic search for ancient sites in the northeast corner of Xinjiang under the presumption that ancient peoples would have located settlements along a stream. As he travelled through communities Binghua would question the locales whether they had ever found any broken bowls, wooden artifacts, or the like. It wasn’t until 1978 that he was told of a place called Qizilchoqa, or ‘Red Hillock.’, the location where the first mummy was located. [2] Since the original discovery hundreds of other perfectly preserved three and four-thousand-year-old mummies have been excavated from four major burial sites dispersed between the arid foothills of the Tian Shan in the remote Taklimakan desert.
Victor Maier, professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania and a collaborative investigator with Chinese scientists excavating these sites elaborates in his journal “Ancient Mummies of the Tarim Basin” several unique mummies he encountered on expeditions of which six of these will be considered in this paper to emphasize the distinctly European culture of the Tarim Basin mummies.
One of the oldest of these discovered in 1980 is the Beauty of Loulan, dated to about 1800 B.C.E. She was discovered in the northeastern corner of the Tarim Basin buried wearing a warm cloak or shroud, a hat, boots, a wooden comb, a basket, and a winnowing tray, the ancient agricultural tool for sep
arating grain from chaff.
Approximately 120 kilometers to the west-south-west of Loulan in Ordek’s Necropolis, remotely located in the desert at Small River Cemetery excavators unearthed The Beauty of Xiaohe in a boat coffin. Archeologist estimate that she is from same period and culture as the Loulan Beauty. The Xiaohe tombs are a bit peculiar in that it seems as if all evidence of the society was contained within the coffins, clothes, jewelry wooden masks and other carvings. The graves give the appearance of being relocated to the burial ground from another area as archaeologists have searched for hundreds of kilometers around the tomb complex and have not found any other evidence that could relate to the Xiaohe people or their life style.
Further compounding the mystery of the Xiahoe tombs is variations in coffins. In addition to wooden coffins four clay covered coffins were found surrounded by six to eight wooden stakes. More strange however are the six coffins containing wooden male representations marked with a red X.[3]
One of the more well-known mummies in this paper is the Charchan Man recovered from a tomb near the village of Zaghunluq, in the central portion of the southern edge of the Tarim Basin. 
This site according to Mair is considerably more recent than the two discussed above and dates to around 600 BCE. This is evidenced in Charchan man’s clothing and that of his family, two wives and an infant all buried in rich burgundy clothing signifying colorful dyes in use for textile production at this time.
Like the Charchan man, Yingpan man also was clothed in brightly colored clothing. He is an interesting case, unlike the aforementioned mummies he appears to have been very wealthy and his body is not nearly as pristinely preserved. Yingpan Man’s face is covered by a white mask with a strip of gold foil across the forehead. He is clothed in elaborately embroidered in Greco-Roman motifs and buried with rich trappings. This alongside his burial location along an ancient caravan trail indicates a well-connected merchant or noble status.
A Roman merchant is impressive and a bit out of place but not nearly as strange as the fourth and second century “witches” of Subeshi. These mummies were entombed with pointed black hats that resemble the iconic head- gear of their sisters in medieval Europe. [4] One of females exhumed had been buried wearing a heavy glove that may indicate that she hunted with a raptor. The men were no less interesting, including a man whose head was encased in a felt helmet and another who may have been one of the world’s oldest surgery patients signified by the horsehair stitches creating a suture on his chest. [5]
Of all the Caucasoid mummies the man from Hami with a dozen hats divulges more arti
facts that point to European ancestry than any other. Found at the Qizilchoqa cemetery near Wupu archeologist uncovered an eccentric corpse interned with a large collection of distinctive hats. Among the marvelous collection buried with him are a beret made of the world’s first nalebinding (a technique like crocheting) and a Phrygian-style cap made of thick brown felt with striking white ornamental stitching.
Also from this site are plaids employing the same weave (diagonal twill) as plaids from Celtic sites in Europe dating to around the same period 1000 BCE. [6]
The harsh climates of the Tarim Basin preserved each of these mummies naturally due to extreme aridity and the saline soils of the environment. Combined with severely cold winters that prevented the processes of putrefaction and decomposition nature has allowed scientist and archeologists a clear view of these ancient peoples. A view that shares significant characteristics with European genetic and demands investigation into why and when western societies found their way to China through migration and trade.
The Tarim Basin and the burial grounds of the Caucasoid mummies is located in the Xinjiang region of China situated on the ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean. It is the proximity to the “silk road” that researchers believe brought the European societies to China eventually formulated the cultural and biological diversity of the people of the Tarim Basin. There are two predominant theories that archeologists and anthropologist have determined as most likely contributors to the origins of the peoples of the Tarim basin.
The first is the “steppe hypothesis” which asserts an occurrence of at least two population influxes from the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Investigations have drawn parallels between the earliest bronze age sites of the Tarim basin with the migration herders of the Afanasievo culture through artifacts that exhibit a shared material culture, burial rites and skeletal traits which could imply that Afanasievo culture as the earliest settlers. (ca. 3300–2000 B.C.). Dr. David W. Anthony, an anthropologist at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., working with Russian archeologists has discovered traces of wagon wheels in 5,000-year-old burial mounds on the steppes of southern Russia and Kazakhstan offering evidence that the wheel, wagons and chariots were introduced into China from the West supporting the theory of western migrations. Contributing to this theory wheels similar to those in use in western Asia and Europe in the third and second millenniums B.C. have been found in graves in the Gobi Desert, northeast of the Tarim Basin and in the Tarim Basin ritual horse burials similar to those in ancient Ukraine have been excavated furthering evidence of an exchange of technological advances.[7] The second occurrence is signified in excavation through the introduction of new material culture, clothing styles and burial customs associated with the Andronovo culture occurring in the late Bronze Age with (ca. 2100–900 B.C.).
The second theory, the “Bactrian oasis hypothesis” assumes a two-step settlement as well but differs in origins of original inhabitants suggesting that the irrigation systems, wheat remains, woolen textiles, bones of sheep and goats, and traces of the medicinal plant Ephedra found in Xinjiang points to the Oxus civilization whose heritage is traced to northern Afghanistan and the northeast corner of Iran, while Margiana is further north, in what is today Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Institute for Research on World-Systems University of California-Riverside assumes the stance that the presence of Margiana grave goods in these regions indicates the presence of trader-priests who were organizing the exchange of the desired raw materials for products from the Margiana-Bactria homeland but were not engaged in regular East to West trading along the Silk Road. It is their hypothesis that early interaction with China was probably mediated by down-the-line trade among steppe nomads and that as a result of the spread of agriculture across the region settlements Bactrian settlements began to emerge.
In researching the histories of interactions of the people of Xiaohe with outside societies it is vital to understand an early timeline of the ancient trade route of the silk road. In additional to the natural migration patterns of herders as early as 100 B.C. ambassadors began diplomatic journeys to Sulla and Wu-ti under the orders of Parthinian king Mithridates, to establish an important link between Rome and China. By the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 B.C., regular communications and trade between India, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe was extensive both on land and by sea. Diplomatic excursions were referenced in Book VI of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, an account during the reign of Claudius from 41 to 54 A. D. tells of a delegate from Taprobanê, today’s Sri Lanka to Rome giving indication that YingPan man may have been a part of a diplomatic voyage. [8] The silk road served not only for trade but for exchanges of ideas and this is evidenced in 1 A.D. when Buddhism began to spread from India into Central Asia. In that same period Xiongnu raids upset Chinese power in Tarim region, where the mummies were discovered, a possible signifier of the value of that region as a cultural point for travelers during this period. The Xiongnu were soon defeated by Chinese General Pan Ch’ao and the Silk road was stabilized expanding caravan trades into two routes – north and south. During this same period Greco-Egyptian geographer, Claudius Ptolemy, writes his geography, and attempts to map the Silk road greatly influencing the expeditions among peoples of different regions and cultures.[9] Over the next five hundred years the silk road was an avenue of exchanges of materials and ideas between peoples rising to its golden age during the Tang dynasty a period in which foreign cultural influences most freely shared. Understanding the region, burials and the migration of Caucasoid peoples in the Tarim Basin is all intriguing and packed with possibilities but as with all research there is a degree of doubt. Recent technology could provide definitive proof of genetics to support archeological investigations of artifacts and migration patterns with the introduction of tests performed on the mummified corpses from the Xiaohe tomb complex to determine genetic lineage.
The Xiaohe cemetery in the Xinjiang, region of present day China was excavated between 2002 and 2005, and consisted of five strata with radiocarbon dates ranging from 4000 to 3500 years ago. This site contains the oldest and best-preserved mummies thus far discovered in the Tarim Basin.[10] Researchers believe that these inhabitants of the Xiaohe tomb are key to understanding earliest settlers, migration patterns and the extent of interactions between the people of Xiaohe and other peoples. During excavation ninety-two individuals of the one hundred and sixty-seven graves were transported to DNA laboratory of Jilin University, to be subjected to DNA analysis of teeth and bone. Thirty-six of these individuals successfully yielded twenty-one distinct DNA haplotypes, of which eighteen could be assigned to twelve previously defined haplogroups. There are two haplotypes observed in Xiaohe, the basal U5a that is found broadly in Europe and central Asia, and the U5a haplotype found exclusively in Europe for modern people suggesting a strong European connection. Analysis of DNA from the deepest layer of burials of the Xiaohe site revealed that the first settlers had European paternal lineages, and maternal lineages of European and central Siberian origin, consistent with the “Steppe hypothesis” of the origins of the first inhabitants. [11]
However, analysis of the more recent burial layers reveals more widespread mitochondrial lineages suggesting a later genetic blend of both east and west that is an indication of cultural exchanges that must be considered in the deciphering of the Tarim basin Mummies . Having explored archeological and anthropological hypothesis of origins based on archeological evidence, Deoxyribonucleic Acid tests that revealed a degree of European genetics and the importance of the silk trade route with its proximity to the Tarim basin mummies it should now be considered a comprehensive study of language. Exploring the common origin of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, the ancient language of Hindu law and religion that ultimately formed the parent language, now called Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and how this may relate to the Tarim mummies in discovering lineage and traditions.
According to “Genes, language, and culture: an example from the Tarim basin.” By Thornton, Christopher P., and Theodore G. Schurr and published in the 2004 Oxford Journal European explorers in the nineteenth century returned from Xinjiang with the only known texts we can associate with the Tarim Basin mummies. Buddhist manuscripts dating to the sixth-eighth centuries AD that had been written in languages and or dialects of a previously unknown linguistic family, Tocharian.[12] An extinct branch of the Indo-European family considered by most scholars to be related to western Indo-European languages such as Celtic and Italian that to date has only been reconstructed back to around 500–400 BC. [13] This article stresses that there are two immediate problems with the Yuezhi–Guti–Tocharian analogy. Asserting that historians eager to associate the languages translated from the documents discovered in the Tarim Basin historically with the people mentioned in Greek and Indic texts subjectively labeled them Tocharian . Secondly it is asserted that there is no evidence linked to the mummies that suggests an association between these important archaeological finds and this extinct linguistic family.[14] Dr. Michael Puett, a historian of East Asian civilizations at Harvard University contrasts this view with the notion of diffusion stating that “Research on the Tocharians, the mummies and related artifacts revealed clear processes of diffusion as ca be seen in language chart that displays comparison and transition of words through intermingling. Puett is supported in this view by Dr. Colin Renfrew, an influential archeologist at Cambridge University in England contesting that the manuscripts dated between the sixth and eighth centuries A.D., may be an implication that the language represents an extremely early branching off the original, or proto-Indo-European, language. [15] Dr. Mair who is on the forefront of research in the Tarim basin mummies admits that these tantalizing peoples nor their artifacts bear solid records of their earliest linguistic or spiritual status. Acknowledging that the Indo-European Tocharian language of the region is attested from a much later date (6th-8th c. A.D.) than the mummies, which can only tentatively be identified as belonging to the ancestors of the Tocharian speakers. However, Mair, a professor of Chinese and Indo-Iranian literature at the University of Pennsylvania and James Mallory, a distinguished Indo-European linguist and archaeologist at Queen’s University in Belfast based on strong circumstantial evidence are convinced that the Afanasievo culture—a steppe-related culture to the north of the Tarim Basin, might have been the source of the people who created the earliest Tarim mummies and perhaps brought the Proto-Tocharian language into the region. With no concrete evidence it is difficult to determine language of people but there can be an assumed ancestral lineage and transmission of language through migration of peoples.[16]
Research of the Tarim Basin mummies has been an exhilarating adventure despite the enigma and mystery that surrounds these ancient peoples. Emigrational patterns and DNA samplings point to an early western expansion into the east but science has yet to formulate concrete evidence that empirically defines the Caucasoid inhabitants as original settlers or to define a direct relationship to the Tarim basin and its additional inhabitants. Genetics and burial artifacts of the Caucasoid people evidence clear migration from either the North or the East.
More confounding is the lack of written texts directly related to the Tarim basin mummies that would tell the culture, the beliefs and the histories. It can be assumed for now hypothetically, that these silent artifacts are contributors to the Tocharian language in one form or another as a necessity of intermingling. As of this writing the information is scarce and we must rely on the evidence researched that multiple ancient societies of European lineages migrated into the Tarim Basin. That these people shared technological exchanges, engaged in agriculture and commerce creating uniquely European settlements at a period earlier than previously known and by doing so contributed to modern heritage of the region. The Tarim mummies for years to come will be tantalizing historians with their mysteries and possibilities.
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[1] 中国石油天然气集团公司. Accessed October 7, 2016. http://www.cnpc.com.cn/en/xhtml/pdf/23-Tarim%20Basin.pdf.
[2] “The Mummies of Xinjiang | DiscoverMagazine.com,” Discover Magazine, accessed October 7, 2016, http://discovermagazine.com/1994/apr/themummiesofxinj359.
[3] “The Mystery of the Xiaohe Mummies in China,” Ancient Origins, accessed October 7, 2016, http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/mystery-xiaohe-mummies-china-00578.
[4] Mair, Victor H. “Ancient Mummies of the Tarim Basin.” Expedition 58, no. 2 (Fall2016 2016): 24-29. (accessed October 7, 2016)
[5] ibid
[6] ibid
[7] John N. Wilford, “Mummies, Textiles Offer Evidence Of Europeans in Far East – The New York Times,” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, accessed October 8, 2016,
[8] Abeydeera, Ananda. “New Light on the First Sri Lankan Embassy to Rome Mentioned by Pliny the Elder.” Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities 35, no. 1/2 (November 2009): 55-74. (accessed September 6, 2016)
[9] ibid
[10] Chunxiang, Li, et al. “Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China.”
[11] ibid
[12] Thornton, Christopher P., and Theodore G. Schurr. “Genes, language, and culture: an example from the tarim basin.” Oxford Journal Of Archaeology 23, no. 1 (February 2004): 83-106. (accessed September 6, 2016).
[13] ibid
[14] ibid
[15] Wilford, John N. “Mummies, Textiles Offer Evidence Of Europeans in Far East – The New York Times.” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Accessed October 8, 2016.
[16] . “The riddle of the Tarim basin mummies.” Mankind Quarterly 41, no. 4 (nod): 437-446. t (accessed September 6, 2016).
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