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Originally Posted by man on the moon
An apt description of yours truly. Eurasia indeed had caucasoid and middle eastern peoples at various times. But the Gobi is way East. Here is a map from Encarta.\ |
Yes, the Gobi is further East than the areas I mentioned. It's outside the range of the Scythians, as least as portrayed in the Wikipedia article. This is interesting, but not amazing in the way that Kennewick man would be if he were caucasoid. People have always moved around. I think there's a misconception that travel and migration are recent inventions, and that if you went back more than a few hundred years you'd find "pure races" isolated in their homelands.
Quote:
Originally Posted by man on the moon
That part of the East is very definitely in Asia, and thought to be peopled by Asians: short for the most part, black hair, narrow eyes...
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Asians aren't necessarily short, moreover neither are mongoloids (which you seem to mean when you said "Asian"). North Chinese are often tall. You have to be careful with Chinese descriptions: they have a very broad idea of what constitutes "red". I've heard them call hair "red" that you or I would call auburn, brown or blonde.
Quote:
Originally Posted by man on the moon
The presence of caucasoids receiving a burial like this in the Gobi is somewhat unexpected. I remember hearing some interesting things about Ghangis Khan, and Carlin mentions it also, but those facts have more or less been ignored or thought of as "he was talked up". Pringles made a similar comment in "The Mummy Congresses". The story is that a mummy researcher was visiting a museum in Asia and came upon some clearly caucasoid mummies that had been recovered in the Gobi. She made reference to some early Chinese writings that seemed to describe such peoples, but had been written off previously because the groups were not known to have mixed. The few comments were disregarded or thought to be 'poetic license'. That understanding is now being revisited by some researchers to see if dates line up, etc.
I am not saying the Mongolians were purely Asian, but I would argue that they were enough so to not be particularly out of place in the developing cultures of the region. Certainly not caucasoid, at least from what we know.
I don't remember the details more than that, sorry. I returned the book to the library.
I have no idea. When I get a few--will hopefully be settled next week--I may put some more time into reading. We'll see if my interest stays piqued.
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