While genetic evidence has shown that populations of Western Eurasians existed in Xinjiang, where their DNA persists in some areas to this day, National Geographic reports that a man exhumed from a 1,500 year old tomb in Taiyuan is evidence that such populations may have pushed even further east than previously believed
The man, named Yu Hong, died in 618 A.D. and his tomb indicates that he was a chieftain of a group of people who settled in Central China from Xinjiang around the time of the Sui Dynasty. Carvings in the tomb show the migration as well as scenes of daily life but what had puzzled researchers until recently was the distinctly ‘caucasian’ features of some of the figures. Studies at the tomb, discovered in 1999, were hampered by a lack of complete skulls. So researchers turned to mitochondrial DNA instead. The analysis was carried out by Zhou Hui, head of the DNA laboratory of the College of Life Science at Jilin University in Changchun.
According to Hui: “The existence of European lineages in China was already known to us, but these lineages are mainly concentrated in Xinjiang province. In the central part of China, west-Eurasian lineages are seldom found in modern populations and have never been found in an ancient individual.”
Austin Hughes, a researcher at the University of South Carolina, added that the discovery in China “shows that there has always been gene flow between human populations. I think it’s possible that these types of genetic studies can give a clearer picture of human movements and human gene flow.”
While there is no evidence that a settled population of Western Eurasians established itself permanently in Central China, Yu Hong’s migration suggests that ideas of genetic and cultural isolation–still believed by some Chinese nationalists and frankly much of the general public here–will need to be reconsidered.
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Researchers have also found one inscription in the tomb depicting Yu Hong leading his people into Taiyuan while small children, touts, and monument builders stared at them on the street, pointed fingers, and yelled “lao wai!” and “DVD? Lady bar?”
7 responses so far ↓
1 davesgonechina // May 24, 2007 at 10:33 pm
AGGGGGHHH! NatGeo is using the word European! It’s Eurasian, dammit! It’s like saying Afghanis are Scandinavian! For god sakes, you people make maps! You should be beaten over the head with a Sogdian funerary couch!
2 花崗齋之愚公 // May 24, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Good point.
I think somehow “European” gets people’s attention faster than “Western Eurasian.”
Frankly, I think many of the terms used (for example, how are we defining the term “caucasian”) tend to be unclear when reported without qualification or explanation.
3 davesgonechina // May 24, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Looking at the Chinese reports, it gets the 欧洲人 treatment as well. But it does end saying he had a Central Asian lineage. Still, it’s all marketing. Poor history.
The art of funerary couches is something on which people like Judith Lerner have been doing great work. The couches include elements of Kushan, Sogdian, Turkic and even Indian (Yu Hong’s has an Indian bull) in a fundamentally Chinese context.
But Shanxi is next to the Ordos valley, the pivot for various Central Asian waves in China. All this European malarkey just makes it like Central Asians don’t count, or came from Western Europe. Other way around, people.
4 davesgonechina // May 24, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Also, DNA makes a sexier headline than “art historian”.
5 花崗齋之愚公 // May 25, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Dave,
I agree. Central Asia gets slighted by the historians of both Asia and Europe. After three weeks of plagues and invaders, One of my students (in a European history class) asked me if there was anything in Central Asia except for a kind of “supermarket of death.
We definitely need to find some way to integrate Central Asia more fully into a more comprehensive (”Pan-Eurasian” even?) historical narrative.
6 davesgonechina // May 26, 2007 at 2:43 am
@J: “supermarket of death”. I well sympathize, it does end up looking that way alot. I think Chinese history is an easier place to give Central/Inner Asia proper placement than European history (the Manchus, obviously, are a good start), but I know the Chinese half a bit better. All I know with Europe is that as you travel east you get more of that “our country was the last, best hope for stopping the unwashed horsemen from raping your great-great-great-great-great-great grandma, monsieur. So you better let us in the EU.”
7 花崗齋之愚公 // May 26, 2007 at 9:51 am
Dave,
Great point. I think historians need to look big picture more and get out of neat little “area studies” boxes.
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