Europeans in Western China, 1200 B.C. 130
beijing_coder writes: "Caucasian-looking mummies have been discovered in the deserts in Western China since late 1800s. Now DNA tests showed they "belonged to the same genetic lineage as most modern-day Swedes, Finns, Tuscans...". I'd like to add that although the mummies were found in what's Western China today, in recorded history (after the mummies' time) that region were inhabited mostly by nomadic people, not Chinese."
How unusual is this? (Score:4)
Also, if these have been turning up since the 1800s, is there a major archaeological relevance to that area? What was there at the time, anyone know?
Swedes and Finns? (Score:4)
AFAIK, the Finns and Swedes are not at all related. They just happen to have turned out neighbors. Linguistically, at least, the Finn's language is not at all related to any other European language. The exact orgins of the Finn's was, at least as I can remember, unknown.
On the subject of the Finnish...our favorite Finn is actually of the Swedish ethnicity, and just happened to be living in Finland.
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
This is news? (Score:4)
Arguably (Score:1)
More simply put, is your poster at all sure about the direction of the migration?
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:2)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:2)
Ooops, should have chosen my words more carefully. Not related to any Indo-European language would be techincally correct.
How's this for a link. (Score:3)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
Although he is best known for his works in the C language...
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:5)
Maybe Linus (or mine) great great great grandfather was a Swede, but then you could also argue that [insert favorite American here] isn't really American but really [irish|german|french|whatever].
BTW, if you've read Rebel Code by Glyn Moody, it talks about "the duck pond". Well, that is a very real concept among swedish speaking finns in Finland. It really almost is as if every swedish speaking finn knows every other swedish speaking finn, at least indirectly. A friend of mine studied with Linus Torvalds. An army buddy of mine claimed to be a close friend of Linus Torvalds (this was in 1994 before he was even all that famous) etc. Personally I've never met or even seen him even tho I live quite close to where he lived before he went to work in the USA.
Re:How unusual is this? (Score:1)
Can You Say Taklamakhan? (Score:5)
I guess the DNA study is a recent development. P revious researchers think they may have been related to the Celts. The Weegas (God knows how many English spelling variations ther are) probably have some ancestry from these peoples. Some of them have blue eyes, which can be seen in other shows about Western China. They do share some cultural characteristics with the mummies. Over time the caucasoid gene pool was replaced by the mongoloid gene pool.
Check out PBS 1998 Nova's Mysterious Mummies of China [pbs.org] and for 1999 the Discovery Channel's Riddle of the Desert Mummies [discovery.com]
Why oh why is it that all the cool stuff about the history of mankind... er ah humanity is in countries that aren't friendly to America? China, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.
If you think the international politics are bad. Just check out our very own domestic Graves Act. [nps.gov] It allowed aboriginal Americans to claim the 9,000 year old bones of the Kennewick Man as their direct ancestor. Nova also covered this issue with Mystery of the First Americans [pbs.org]. His genes show that he's most closely related to the Ainu.
The peopling of the Earth is a contentious issue and probably will be until all our genes are thoroughly mixed and we become a uniform gray with no outward sexual differentiation.
A better theory (Score:1)
Maybe they were monkey men [cnn.com].
Kenewick Man in Pacific Northwest (Score:2)
I believe that Europeans have created a global settlements many times before and each time there has been a fall. Ancient remains of Europeans have been found on every continent long before "modern" Europeans were supposed to have been there. Kenewick man in America, the Anu in Japan, remains in ancient China and Seti's mummy seems to be red head. Ultimately what does it mean? It could mean periodic cometary impacts, catastrophic changes in climate, super volcano's, shifts in the earths magnetic field, liberal socialist philosophy, who knows. :-)
It may ultimately mean that stone will last longer than civilization.
A more general view (Score:3)
Homo Sap began leaving Africa while the last Ice Age was in progress and North Africa through Arabia was verdant grasslands.
The first to leave spread east through India on to China.
The glaciers retreated and later leavers of Africa could find new land to the north and follow the glacial retreat into Europe and Siberia. Genetic studies show something like 13 men and 6 women fostered all of Europe. Maybe they didn't like speaking Arabic ;)
15,000 years after that, Egyptians built the first pyramid.
We know so little about this subject to date that speculative revisions can be made almost yearly such is the rate of discovery.
related to hungarian and estonian (Score:1)
Re:This is news? (Score:1)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
The original inhabitants were, IIRC, pushed away by the movement from the South. I assume that the new inhabitants took their language as their own, thus creating this genetic-linguistic-discrepancy.
I remember my history teacher telling me about the mention Tacitus has in his Annals; it probably referred to the aboriginals.
How old? (Score:1)
How old are these mummies anyway? 1000 years? 2000?
As a finn... (Score:2)
east turkestan (Score:1)
Tuscans? (Score:1)
THE ACCIDENTAL CRUSADER -- wtf? (Score:2)
What gives?
Can anyone give me the correct link to this story? And no this isnt redundant no one pointed it out as of yet.
I do however think that this story has more to do with geeks then anyone pertaning to mummys...
Does anyone know the other chemical used in conjection with 2,4d for agent orange?
In my area they use these pesticides and after that article I think I am going to talk to the mayor of my city about getting them banned.
Anyone else think its a good idea to ban this crap?
The Lottery:
French Canadians (Score:2)
Say that is a French Canadian, and they're likely to punch you.
Europeans colonised America in 28,000 BC (Score:2)
Link to story (Score:1)
Has anyone got a relevant URL?
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
old news (Score:1)
Your link is broken. Now points to another story.
Besides, where have you geeks been. There have been major stories about these mummies for the past 4-5 years, at least.
Finally, these mummies are most likely Indo-Europeans; they don't have any relation to Finns or Tuscans (assuming current theories that Tuscan was not an Indo-European language). Studies of the written language of these people, Tocharian, suggest their language was Western, rather than Eastern (ie, not Indo-Iranian) and thus more closely related to the Germanic and Celtic languages.
Their plaid wool garments are suggestive of Celtic patterns.
The "pointy" hats worn by some of these mummies is not unlike the old witches hat or wizards hat of European folk lore, and was also similar to hats worn by certain Saka or Scythian tribes that once lived in Iran.
Finally, it has long been known that ancient Chinese texts speak of interacting with whites, and that the horse tribes of central asia were "aryan" - Indo-European speaking whites. These aryan horse tribes were once common on the borders of China until pushed back by Turkic and Mongolian horse tribes, slowly over a period of a thousand years, starting perhaps with the Huns and ending with the Mongols.
It's amazing that most people do not know this, but such are the wages of modern liberal education, political correctness, and the like.
Caucasians originated in S. Russia. (Score:2)
Caucasians are from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. That region is the origin of white people. In northern Iran there are people who are whiter than anyone you commonly see in Europe or the U.S.
Since they come from southern Asia, it is not surprising that Caucasians can be found in many places in Asia.
Map of the Caucasus [about.com]
Re:Link to story (Score:5)
It took some searching. Apparently, their search engine sucks.
Óli
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WinDOS, you can't live with it, and you can live without it.
Re:the story has been moved to: (Score:3)
Working link to mummy article [saturdaynight.ca]
Link (Score:1)
Or search for mummy on the site.
the link is now to an aticle about pesticides (Score:1)
Re:This is news? (Score:1)
It is worth noting that its very likely that many modern speakers of Uighur have ancestors who spoke Tocharian A and Tocharian B, extinct Indo-European languages remotely related to English which were spoken in northwestern China up until around a thousand years ago.
Of course, a biological designation and a linguistic designation are two entirely different things.
this news is so old ... (Score:2)
on this.
Re:related to hungarian and estonian (Score:1)
Yes, the finnish, estonian and Hungarian are related, at least by language. Yes, we all came from Asia. So these mummies may be our ancestors. The relation between these people is now established by looking at their languages (finnish and estonian are really quite close, finnish and hungarian as not that close, but still deemed to be related)
"races" shift over time (Score:2)
based on bone structure, genetic markers,
physical features (if you have flesh).
Bones from ten thousand years ago are even harder.
K-man doesn't realy fit into any modern categories
acoording many researchers (see PBS special).
Already been exposed as bullshit (Score:1)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:2)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
Top then things we should tell China re this (Score:2)
9 no, we don't
8 yes, we do
7 etc
6 [you
5 fill
4 in
3 these]
2
1 All your ancestors are belong to us.
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Re:How unusual is this? (Score:2)
At least, Ainu is not Caucasians. Check here [usnews.com] and here [dai3gen.net]. There are a few more on this topic available written in Japanese, but most of you probably can't read them (I am part Ainu Japanese. I do not look quite like a "normal" Japanese).
I have seen this type of misconception often, because some documentations on Ainu describes the features like Cacasians. This is mainly because of the full beard, and Ainu people looks different from other tribes around the immediate area (Japanese as well as Amur river tribes). These are mainly reported by the earliest Europeans seeing Amur river region Ainu.
PBS Nova had this covered (Score:2)
All kinds of neat things, photos, etc, and you can probably order the video too.
The original story linked above looks like the human interest story of the archeologist and the political interests in China made it relevant as a story, as far as the newspaper editors were concerned.
I can see the Chinese government trying to deal with politically inconvenient truths.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
OFFTOPIC : fortune (Score:1)
Last I read they caught the ceiling with their front legs and were then pivoted onto their other four feet.
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
Re:Kenewick Man in Pacific Northwest (Score:1)
the western, white man is fundamentally (genetically, perhaps) unable to create stable societies.
Yeah - like Europe doesn't have any stable society. Do I have to remind you that it was occupied and has been since before the time of Stonedge by european populations ? Europe has always been at least as stable as China. Peace & war at times, but still a solid society nonetheless.
any contact with the white man has usually resulted in the destruction of the native culture
History is full of cultures destroyed by another (more powerfull) culture. The fact is that in the XXth century western populations was the main responsible for these destruction, but from the Jewish turned into slaves of the Egyptians to Tibet, history have been full of it (and I'd ready to bet that it's not over yet).
Magnificent and highly civilized black kingdoms
*caugh caugh* . Where are the cities ? Where are the temples ? Where are the texts ? Where are the realisations and leftovers of those "magnificient black kingdoms" ?? Nowhere to be found. AFAIK, appart from north Africa (Egypt, Morroco, etc...) which were mostly Arab populations, there's nothing. The African cultures have left little to history. A huge continent hasn't produced in 4000 years as much artifacts, buildings and texts that the Greeks (and their tiny country) or Chineses in a single century. I'm not drawing any conclusions, just stating the facts.
Re:related to Estonian, Karelian and Hungarian (Score:1)
Finnish and Estonian are similar enough that people can understand each other just fine. However, about 200 words have a slightly divergeant meaning, which sometimes leads to funny misunderstandings. The level of similarity between the two languages is about the same as between, say, Spanish and Portuguese. In between Finnish and Estonian, there is Karelian, which is still spoken in Eastern Finland and, to a lesser extent, in Northern Russia's Karelian republic.
Hungarian and other languages of central Russia, such as Mordavian and Komi, are distant cousins of those Baltic languages. In each case, about 200 words have retained the same pronounciation and meaning e.g. body parts, harvesting equipment, hunting parlance, etc. but that's all the affiliation that remains with the Baltic branch.
Genetically, Finns and Karelians are related to Germanic and Russian branches. However, Samer (i.e. Lapland natives) have a genetic heritage that ressembles that of central Russia, near the Perm area, and the language is associated with Finnish (not that many Finns can understand Lappish, however!).
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
I was taught German and French at school (UK) and am nowhere near able to hold a decent converstaion in either.
I'm embarassed/depressed about the poor language skills of most of the anglophone world... and especially mine
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Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:2)
The answer to that is basically NO. I'm an American who has also lived in Hamburg, Germany and London, England. Compared to much of Europe there is very little foreign language instruction in the USA during the first 13 years of schooling. An average American might get 3 years of low quality Spanish instruction in high school. The American system of education is also organized in a vastly different manner than the systems of most European countries so it is hard to make comparisons beyond this.
Re:This is news? (Score:2)
Caucasians in North Western China (Score:3)
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Language in U.S. Schools (Score:2)
Many (most?) U.S. High schools require two years of a foreign language. (High school is roughly 14-18 here, grades 9-12. I think our grades are off by one from most European counts.).
Frequently junior high schools (grades 7-8, but that varies; there are 6-8 and 7-9, and they're sometimes called "middle schools") have spanish and maybe french or german. Two years there tends to replace one year of high school.
Our colleges frequently have a language requirement as well, with college years equating (roughly) two high school years. Four years of high school language will meet most college requirements. Often individual departments (e.g., math) will have a written language test if foreign language research is still relevant (so at my undergraduate, if I had finished the math major instead of taking a pair of minors (philosophy), I would have had to shown that I could translate a page from a german or russian (or french?) math text or article into english (with use of a dictionary). In physics or economics, everything importantis either written in English in the first place, or immediately trnaslated, so there is no similari requirement).
Our requirements are closer in purpose to your third language in sixth grade than the english in third. You're not learnning english to learn about british or american culture or literature, but because it's the universal language. We already happen to speak it; if another language had that role, I assume that we'd be trained in it early on.
Then to get things really wierd, there's an english group pushing to have british rather than american english taught as a foreign language, which completely misses the point--american english isn't the norm because it's spoken in the U.S., but because it's the dialect spoken by everyone else.
hawk
Re:Can You Say Taklamakhan? (Score:1)
There hasn't been a successful DNA analysis. I'm pretty sure that scientists weren't allowed to drill into the teeth, which would be the most likely source of uncontaminated DNA.
Re:A more general view (Score:2)
Equal distance (Score:1)
But John, what about....the baby? (Score:2)
Oh Marcia!
Oh John!!
Oh Marcia!!
Oh shit....
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:2)
First off, be careful not to equate genetic ancestry with linguistic "ancestry" (if I may so use the word).
For instance, consider the variety of genetic ancestries that make up the populations of native English speakers in the modern world: you can find native speakers of English with biological ancestors from any corner of any continent in the world, saving Antartica.
That's not to say that there's no correlation at all; people do tend to marry others who speak at least one language in common.
But to break your statement down into two parts:
- genetic reletedness: a somewhat pedantic point, but it is believed that all modern humans are related. If the Finns and Swedes are "unrelated", then that merely means that their relationship "goes way back". (But notice also another post in this thread thas claims that they are in fact fairly closely related genetically.)
- linguistic relatedness: Finnish is not an Indo-European language, but again there may be a deeper relatonship that "goes way back". A lot of historical linguists (but by no means all) believe that there was a more ancient family of languages that included the ancestors of both the Finnish and the IE languages. Since the Proto-Indo-European language is believed to have been "a language" rather than "a family" around 6000 years ago, the common ancestor of that language and Finnish woulh have to be somewhat earlier, perhaps as much as 10,000-15,000 years BP. There are several competing hypotheses, but the most popular one right now posits a family called Nostratic, which you should be able to find described via your favorite search engine. You may also want to search for Proto-Afro-Asiatic.
At any rate -- forgive the pedantry -- it is not really safe to say that two populations "are not at all related", whether refering to their biological or linguistic ancestry either one. (We do often say that two languages "are not related", but that should be taken as a bad shorthand form for "are not demonstrably related.)I also notice that the third party in the odd grouping {Swedes, Finns, Tuscans} represent the denizens of what was once Etruria, the home of the Etruscans, speakers of another non-IE language in Europe. It may be that the researchers thought that the old Etruscan blood still runs in Tuscany, in which case the odd {Swedes, Finns, Tuscans} becomes "peoples of western Eurasia before the historical sweeps of conquest". I don't think I would make such an assumption about Etruscan blood in Tuscany, but maybe they know something I don't.
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Re:Top then things we should tell China re this (Score:1)
6 [you
5 fill
4 in
3 these]
2
"All our spyplane are belong to us."
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Re:Kenewick Man in Pacific Northwest (Score:1)
If it means anything at all (other than that you've been reading too much New Age drivel), it probably means that one of those regions colonized Europe.
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He was probably Tocharian. (Score:2)
Its well known that Indo-Europeans originated from the Southern Russian Steppe/Central Asian regions. Tadjik, Pamir, Dari & Pashto are all Indo-European languages of Central Asia.
Other past Indo-European languages of that region include Sacian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Kwaresmian & of course Scythian. The Scythians ranged right across the steppe, from the Black Sea (where they traded & fought with the Greeks) all the way to Mongolia (where they traded & fought against the ancient Chinese).
Check this page
http://www.wlc.com/oxus/eyawtkat.htm
Re:Already been exposed as bullshit (Score:1)
Ancient Aryans (Score:3)
Re:Can You Say Taklamakhan? (Score:1)
The reports I read about Kennewick Man say that his face (according to reconstruction) looks like Patrick Stewart.
New Star Trek movie plot: in the 24th Century, the lawsuits over the Kennewick Man are finally resolved (they would have been settled sooner, but things were slowed down when all the lawyers were killed during the Post-Atomic Horror). The DNA found is fed into the Star Fleet central computers, and they are shocked to find they exactly match Picard's DNA. Just then, they get word that the Borg have upgraded to Windows 2380, which means they no longer have the bug that was exploited at the start of Season Four. They try to mess with Earth's history again (as in VIII) but Windows 2380 switched to 64-bit time values, so they can go back 9,000 years now. So the Enterprise is sent after them, but this time, they really have to abandon ship and beam down to obscure places to live out their lives and not affect history. Picard decides to go to the American Northwest. Then the others somehow make it back, but meanwhile, Picard falls off a horse and dies, so they decide to bury him there because the transporter is low on energy or something.
Re:Can You Say Taklamakhan? (Score:1)
This is really strange
Re:Language in U.S. Schools (Score:1)
I don't know about that... Most grad programs in physics have one sort or another of a foreign language requirement. After all, someone's got to do the translating, and it's probably better if someone also trained in physics is doing it... By no means are all papers translated, but unfortunately the problem is biggest in languages that are relatively unlike English, and few grad students are likely to have the time to take them on- it's a true pity more physicists don't speak Japanese or Russian, for instance.
Re:Europeans colonised America in 28,000 BC (Score:2)
BTW, it might help, next time, if you didn't simply resort to plagiarizing a white supremacist website.
ObJectBridge [sourceforge.net] (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Re:Tuscans? (Score:1)
Re:Kenewick Man in Pacific Northwest (Score:1)
There is no evidence of South American natives having created a civilization that lasts longer than 500 years. Meanwhile, white people created the Roman Empire, which lasted either 1000 or 1500 years, depending on whether or not you count the Byzantines as Roman; and the Indian civilization, which has lasted almost 4000 years and has preserved its native religion almost intact all this time. This rivals the longevity of the Chinese and the Egyptians.
It's also worth pointing out that "white culture," if there is such a thing, is just as much "corrupted" by Chinese and Japanese culture as Chinese and Japanese culture are "corrupted" by whites. (And yes, Chinese culture has been "corrupted" by whites. Or did you think Marx, Engles and Lenin were all Chinese?)
Your claim that the Japanese culture has been subjugated by the Whites is laughable at best. Changed, certainly, but hardly subjugated.
ObJectBridge [sourceforge.net] (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
old news about chinese mummies.. (Score:1)
Re:Already been exposed as bullshit (Score:1)
Racist Site? No... (Score:1)
I think what he was arguing, however red-neckedly it may have come off is valid. The point was that "Native Americans" weren't really native - they migrated here too. Granted they were here prior to 1492, but so was Erik the Red (692 ad if I recall).
As for "continuity," since a caucasoid WAS here 9,000 BC, they either mingled with other migrants and effectively vanished, or were slaughtered by the "Native Americans." Don't forget that many of the Native American tribes were not hippie peace lovers. They engaged in genocide, slavery and other crimes, just as the Europeans who settled in the latter half of the last millenium.
A common attack on that argument is that "we" (meaning I can only assume liberal guilt soaked/immortal americans who've been there and done that) killed far more and drove them off thier land. Guess what? We were just more effective. Rifles do that, 100 to 1 odds in favour of the settlers do that, and history of large scale war (see Rome) developed logistics lets one do that.
As for me? I'd like Bill Mahr from Politically Incorrect to be President, or better yet, as the Supreme Court.
The important thing, above all else, is that red necked racists (whom the poster is not necessarily) and rich white liberal guilt stricken folk can both argue about it without suing each other. Hopefully it will last a few more years before thats not the case in the US.
off topic but... (Score:1)
aryan(arja)-> orja, a finnish word meaning "slave"
slavic -> slaavi = slave
Maybe we all think ourselves superior and the name of the opposing people is linked to slavery...
Of course, this could mean nothing(99% propable)
Another one: Sami, the finnish original people, give the land a name, which could come from the word "suomaa"(swampland), not very different the modern "suomi"(Finland)... after all, we have lots of swamps... hehheh...
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
everybody else.
I remember reading that the modern finn is geneticely 60% germanic and 40% fenno-ugrian
on the average.
Me myself is probably has aboutthat since I
am part of a traditionaly finnish-speaking
minority in northern Sweden and from a family
with some Vallonian/Finnish roots.
<hr>
Point is article is probably right about relation
to modern day Swedes and Finns. BUT those people has diffent genitical origin and have later mixed
so what gives for the mumies. Just confusing.
Not to be PC, but... (Score:2)
Re:Kenewick Man in Pacific Northwest (Score:1)
The problem is the notion of Europeans, Chinese, etc. Who are Europeans when they were not living in Europe, or when they did not speak Indo-European? Who are the Chinese when there was no China?
If you've ever taken a course in anthropology or history, you may have realized that the notion of races as you seem to hold have long been questioned. It is a convenient notion but who are Caucasians? Archaelogy has been showing that peoples have always been moving. In many cases mixing with local populations. The inhabitants of any peace of land on earth today are all immigrants, or more likely, a mixture of immigrants.
I do think those findings of blue-eyed mummies in Central Asia are fascinating. But they are fascinating because humans have been traveling a long distance beyond the area today we think they were confined, probably trasnmitting cultures.
Oh, and Ainus are not more closely related to current European populations than they are to the inhabitants of Pacific islands. In my life time alone, the view about the ethnicity of Ainus has been changing. The most outrageous of them I remember was some encyclopedia entry that said that the Ainus are not related to any modern humans but to Neandeltars :(
Re:old news (Score:1)
I'm no expert, but I have seen both of the documentaries... Yet again,
forbidden archaeology (Score:1)
Works by people like Michael Cremo prove that the human race goes back millions of years. One thing that is shown is that there was a civilization before ours and before our history and it is mostly gone now. Tools are found in million year old geological areas.
- James - [IMAGE]
Re:A more general view (Score:1)
This sounds interesting, since around that time, India (or South Asia more precisely) was perhaps seeing the Indus Valley Civilization. And the majority of population might not have looked very much like South Asian population today. Indo-European speaking people are supposed to have arrived around 1200 BCE. Or do you mean Native Americans?
So, I appreciate if you could supply some more info on this, especially who concluded that the persons depicted as being killed included Indians, and who concluded that those peoples being killed depicted 4 races, i.e., as if the Egyptians had a notion of races, etc. (I semll some New Age, though :)
Not millions... (Score:1)
Re:How old? (Score:1)
Re:they invaded India (Score:1)
Caste system is what the Portuguese (sp?) thought Indian population was practicing.
South Asia had had systems to distinguish people. One was a system of Varna, which means color (so they say, but I haven't seen any usage of this word to mean color, btw). The system of Varna seems to have been around since the youngest part of the Rgveda was composed. However, it is less than certain that how strongly the system was observed (such as the movability in the system, which is quite difficult in so-called Caste system).
On the other hand, there is another Sanskrit word that may be considered to refer to the caste system---jati, which means birth. That system basically seems to have referred to ancestry, clan, family, hereditary occupation, etc. In practicie, this perhaps closer to the caste system.
However, the difficulty in talking about the caste system is that South Asia is vast! and with a long history. The practices is apparently different from region to region, time to time.
Mechanized transport unnecessary (Score:1)
Korean language is related to Finnish (Score:2)
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Re:off topic but... (Score:1)
Some interesting facts (Score:2)
On what concerns Aryans. As far as I could get from several sources, including the Rig-Veda, we europeans are their enemies. There is a very high probability that the large majority of us are descendants of those that were cursed several times in old texts.
I studied a little bit of mongol and some funny things about us and the Siberians.And this gave me the idea that we europeans didn go to China. We came from China. In hordes. And these hordes do not include indo-europeans per se. It includes a whole group of eurasians: indo-europeans, turkics and finno-hugurians. The history of Europe is an history of a people, for which the mongols are still linguistically very close, which broke away some 9000 years ago. Since then, they have been roaming the west for several times. The origin of this nation is somewhere between Manchuria/Mongolia, and ending in the Altai-Sayan moutainous ridges.
Re:Korean language is related to Finnish (Score:1)
Admittedly, knowing Finnish probably wouldn't give you any extra leg up on learning Japanese, but it's interesting anyway.
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CAVEMEN AND NATIONALISM (Score:1)
They had nothing to do except wander around the world littering, hunting, grunting, farting. They formed groups and occasionally ran into each other. If they didn't war, they traded women or whatever. That's it. They didn't dwell on the racial politics or nationalism we have today!
They didn't care who was going to be thought of as the superior race by idiots in the future like us! They didn't care if all their wanderings confused scientists today! Cavemen had more important things to think about!!
Re:they invaded India (Score:1)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
Re:CAVEMEN AND NATIONALISM (Score:1)
Re:How unusual is this? (Score:1)
Second, let us think a moment about the SilkRoad, a road of trade between China and Europe during the MiddleAges. No Chinese people were coming to Europe, and no Europeans were doing business in China. Who else was then doing the trade and the exchange of products between Europe and China?
It was the Arabs, who were a very advanced civilization at the time.
Third, the provinces in western china are majoritarily muslim and have had links to the Arab world long before the Europeans (which only makes sense since they were neighbours).
Fourth, no idea what was happening in western china before the Arabs (650 A.D.), but I would not be surprised if they had contacts with other Caucasian people in the region that were not European: to me, those Caucasian were probably middle-eastern or indian, and not European (which is obvious if you look at the geography of the region).
zeb.
Re:A more general view (Score:1)
We know so little about this subject to date that speculative revisions can be made almost yearly such is the rate of discovery. Indeed...IANAnthropologist, but I think your facts are not up to date with the most recent science.
There has been Homo Sapiens in africa, India and even China I believe, for at least 100 000 years; whereas Europe at the same times was peopled with Homo Neandertalesis, cousins of the former. Those too were intelligent (i.e. buried people...). 30 000 years ago, Sapiens from africa came over, and Neandertals somehow diseappeared.
There is a genetic figure of 7 womens who supposedly have been the mothers of all europeans ; this is based on mitochondrial DNA, but there too science changes. the calculations for 7 women were made on the supposition that Mitochondrial DNA comes only from the mother, but cases of transmission from the father too have been witnessed, so this figure might be wrong.
Civilisation didn't appear in Egypt first, but in Mesopotamia, what is now Iraq, and was at the time very fertile land ; there the first non-temporary large settlement of man known to us was found. domestication of animals and farming appeared there at about the same time
Re:Caucasians originated in S. Russia. (Score:1)
Re:Swedes and Finns? (Score:1)
For me, living near dead center North America, I can drive over a thousand miles in any direction you want, and be guarenteed that whoever I run into will speak English quite well.
Studying foreign languages is a fun but relatively useless hobby for me. I know a little French and a little Japanese, but my odds of running into someone who speaks either (much less speaks English less well than I speak their language) makes these not particularly practical skills. They let me understand a bit more anime than most, that's about it...
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Some points (Score:1)
The article is basically about Victor Maier. Since I knew Victor Maier (I got my doctorate from his deparment, not in Cinology, but in Indology), I guess I have a little personal feeling.
First of all, as other posters have pointed out, the European looking mummies have long been known. Especially one mummy of blond, blue-eyed young woman discovered by Stein had attracted people's attention. (The article mentions the Beuaty of Loulan). There was a popular novel written about her in Japan. I think they made a movie out of the novel.
The point of the article is not as quite simple as Europeans in China. But it seems to relate to the Aryan homeland. (The article talks about this toward the end.)
Since the discovery of Sanskrit (from the Westerners point of view), the disciplines of comparative linguistics, historical linguistics were formed. They theorized that languages of Europe and India (South Asia) had common origin.
I am sure that every linguist you meet will say that linguistic families and races/ethnicity do not have anything to do with each other. But many people confuse, and I do not think scholars of the 19th century and the early 20th centuries were as cautious as today. As such, the search of aryan homeland has been heavily debated, and having been attracting interests.
One of very early theory was that Indo-European speaking people came from North Europe that includes Germany. I guess everyone knows the implication of this in the history of the 20th century, so I will not touch this.
As notionalists and revisionists in all countries are in rage these days, it is not surprizing that the theory that Indo-European speaking people came from India is becoming popular in India.
But I think currently popular theory among linguists is that they came from somewhere around Black Sea. The problem has been that there has been not much archaelogical evidence that suggests a large settlement or a civilization in that area. For this reason, I have been paying attention to the outcome of this expedition [nationalgeographic.com].
Anyhow, Victor Maier wants to suggest again that Indo-European came from currently German speaking region. I am sure that his intention is purely academic, but it does have a huge politidcal implication.
For one thing, I have trouble understanding the whole situation. Humans with European features (physically) have been living in Europe for.. much more than 10,000 years? And the beginnning of the spread of Indo-European languages is postulated somewhere like 7,000BC, IIRC. So, the use of the word ``European'' in the article is not only vague, but quite misleading, especially it talks about ``the homeland'' later in the article. Finding peoples who lived in Central Asia, and share ancestors, does not make them Europeans. As I am not familiar with the date when Europe was Indo-Europeanized, the date 2,800BC of the earliest mummies could also mean that they conquered Europe. Were the residents of Europe Europeans if they did not speak any of Indo-European languages? Or, they and Europeans might have shared common cultures, and the Tocharians who spoke an Indo-European language might have been the decendents of those mummy people, there is no guarantee that they also spoke Indo-European language. Are they still Euroepans?
I would certainly avoid entering the mine field which is Aryan homeland problem. But I am not an Indo-European speaking person.
I also a little trouble about the use of the word China in the article. Although the area (vast) has been part of People's Republic of China, I would call that area Central Asia. As it may be noticed, the inhabitants of the area do not very much look like what you think of the Chinese. The area had traditionally been considered outside China. The use of the word China in the article seems to carry some unneccesary connotation to the discussion. (The article does talk about independent movement in the area.)
Tuscans? (Score:1)
Re:Can You Say Taklamakhan? (Score:2)
Why don't you look at the (extremely) long history of your own indigenous cultures before complaining that 'Those darn red indians are just too boring, how come we don't have cool chinese mummies?' Theyre so cool they have TV shows.
What the hell is wrong with you people.. if there isn't a TV show about it, it doesnt exist?
5500 BC Something Big Happened (Score:2)