Well, since the ethnic Chinese who discovered them and the locals in the area thought it was weird that the mummies were Caucasian, that's good enough for me. While the Silk and Spice Roads were known to be in operation 1000 to 2000 years ago, finding these people in that area put the whole timeline of the area back several thousand years. I have the book and it makes it quite clear that the AGE of the finds was what they found remarkable- more recent Caucasian remains wouldn't have been as odd. Also, these folks appear to be from a Celtic/Proto-Celtic (in the broadest sense of Celtic, I'm not talking about Irish!) people judging from their fabric. The fabric was found with a clear twill weave, something that the Chinese didn't use. Of course in retrospect it's clear that some people went east instead of west in the migrations that brought the Celtic people all over the Eurasian continent, it's just that these finds were the first evidence that a Celtic people moved that far east and settled there. Karen Seamstrix
-- "Marc Carlson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >From: Karen R Bergquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >...rhodesiensis) was still in Africa. The mummies of Urumchi date to about >4,000 years ago and are homo sapiens although they appear to be caucasian >rather than oriental which is why finding them in the interior of China >is so remarkable. Except that it really shouldn't be.- it's not like they were found in the Yangtze basin. They're from an area where "Caucasians" were known to be historically; and a much shorter walk from the assumed areas where the "Indo-European" ancestors are supposed to be from than any of the other areas where we know they went to the west and south. Some going east makes perfect sense. We just tend to assume that if something happened in a particular geographical region, everyone in that region must be alike. It's similar to the current argueent that since Egypt is in Africa, Cleopatra must have been black, and ignoring the whole reality of regional ethnic types (and more so of their placement 2000 years ago). Marc _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
