South Asian Archaeology 2007

Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the

European Association of South Asian Archaeology
Ravenna, Italy, 26 July 2007

Volume I

Prehistoric Periods
Edited by

Dennys Frenez
Maurizio Tosi

BAR International Series 2454

2013

Published by
Archaeopress
Publishers of British Archaeological Reports
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BAR S2454
South Asian Archaeology 2007. Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the European
Association of South Asian Archaeology Ravenna, Italy, 26 July 2007. Volume I: Prehistoric Periods
Archaeopress and the individual authors 2013

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A VIEW TO THE NORTH: BIOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS ACROSS THE INTER-MONTANE

BORDERLANDS DURING THE LAST TWO MILLENNIA BC
Brian E. Hemphill

he (1998: 565-568) claims that colonization from the

Russo-Kazakh steppe generally co-occurred with a
movement of East Asian populations into the eastern part
of the Tarim Basin. Han suggests that peopling of the
Tarim Basin ended around 500 BC with a later migration
of a Pamir-Ferghana type population from the west.
Hence, Tarim Basin populations feature early
contributions from Europoid populations from the
Russo-Kazakh steppe and Mongoloid populations from
East Asia, coupled with a later contribution from
populations of the Pamir-Ferghana region.

Schoolchildren in the United States are taught that initial

contacts between East and West occurred in the 13 th
century AD with the famous travels of Marco Polo to the
court of Kublai Khan (Komroff, 1930). By contrast,
popular perception in the East holds that contacts stem
from the travels of Zhan Qian to the West in 132 BC (Di
Cosmo, 1996). Recent archaeological discoveries in
Central Asia suggest that even this date is far too recent
(Barber, 1999: 207-208). In the 1970s, silk was
discovered accompanying a burial at Sapalli tepe in
Uzbekistan, and Askarov (1973: 133-134) interpreted this
finding as proof of contact between East and West as
early as the 2nd millennium BC. Later that decade,
discovery of woolen textiles as well as evidence of the
cultivation of wheat and barley at Qwrighul in Xinjiang
provided additional evidence of early contact between
East and West (Mallory and Mair, 2000: 136-140).

Of crucial importance to Hans tripartite model are

human remains from Yanbulaq. According to Han (1990,
1998: 561), it is here that evidence of initial contact
between the peoples of East and West may be found, for
his analysis of 29 relatively complete crania from this site
led him to identify eight as Europoid and the remaining
21 as Mongoloid.

Qwrighul represents just one example of Late

Bronze/Early Iron Age sites that have been discovered in
a series of oases along the periphery of the Taklamakn
Desert (An Zhimin, 1992). This study focuses on the sites
of Krorn, Qwrighul and Alwighul, but of special
importance is the site of Yanbulaq, located at the eastern
periphery of the Tarim Basin. Excavation of these sites
yielded not only woolen textiles, but also wheeled
vehicles and metal objects, none of which appears to have
any local antecedents (Kuzmina, 1998). Perhaps of
greatest interest was the discovery of a series of
unintentionally
mummified
individuals.
These
discoveries led many, such as Mair (1995: 289) to query;
who were these people, and where did they come from?
The best-known explanation has been offered by Mallory
and Mair (2000), who assert the Late Bronze/Early Iron
Age populations of the Tarim Basin were colonists from
the Russo-Kazakh steppe who came to this unoccupied
region. Their model calls for two waves of immigration;
an early immigration of Afanasievo peoples, followed by
a later immigration of Andronovo populations. Mallory
and Mair offer myriad evidence in support of their model
including linguistic evidence for the presence of an
undifferentiated Indo-European language known as
Tocharian, the presence of bronze objects bearing close
similarities to those found on the Russo-Kazakh steppe,
and iconography that depicts individuals of distinctly
non-East Asian appearance.

The purpose of this study is to test Hans tripartite model

for Tarim Basin population origins by testing two
assertions fundamental to this model. First, there is
evidence of two biologically very different populations
(races) at Yanbulaq. Second, these remains from
Yanbulaq provide evidence of early contact between
populations of East and West. That is, given the
attributions made by Han (1990), one set is affiliated with
Europoids from the Russo-Kazakh steppe while the
other shares closest affinities with Mongoloids from
East Asia.
Materials and Methods
The basis for assessing biological affinities of the crania
recovered from Yanbulaq is eight cranial measurements,
two of the vault and six of the face, taken in accordance
with the standards established by Martin (1928). Though
far from ideal, this battery represents the best
compromise between two opposing factors: the number
of measurements forming the basis of comparison, and
the number of individuals represented by a complete set
of data. With this battery of eight measurements, 23 of
the 29 Yanbulaq crania (16 Mongoloid, 7 Europoid)
were retained for multivariate comparison.
The Yanbulaq cranial series is compared to 29 other
cranial series comprising a total dataset of 1505
individuals (845 males, 660 females) ranging in antiquity
from the Neolithic to modern (see Hemphill and Mallory
2004: Table 1). The dataset encompasses nine samples
from the Russo-Kazakh steppe, eight eastern Central
Asian (Xinjiang, China) and East Asian samples, seven
samples from western Central Asia (Turkmenistan,

The most extensive attempts to identify the biological

origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin skeletal remains
(crania) have been by Han Kangxin. In 1998, Han offered
what may be referred to as the tripartite model. Han
asserts that initial peopling of the Tarim Basin may be
attributed to immigration of pastoralist populations from
the Russo-Kazakh steppe, but unlike Mallory and Mair,
117

Brian E. Hemphill

Uzbekistan), three samples from the Iranian Plateau

(Iran), and three samples from the greater Indus Valley
(Pakistan) (see Hemphill and Mallory, 2004: Figure 1).

results not only fail to identify the presence of two

biologically distinct populations at Yanbulaq, they also
confirm that the effects of sex dimorphism are effectively
controlled for by this method of size standardization.

Different statistical approaches are used to address the

two assertions fundamental to Hans tripartite model. The
assertion that two very different biological populations
are present at Yanbulaq (Han, 1998: 561) is tested by size
adjusting each individual. This is accomplished by
dividing each measurement by the geometric mean of all
eight measurements by individual (Jungers et al., 1995).
This removes the effect of differential size between
individual crania, which is especially important when
both males and females are compared, so that biological
differences due to geographic origin are not conflated by
sex dimorphism. Once adjusted for overall size, crania
are submitted to Wards (1963) hierarchical cluster
analysis to assess the patterning of intersample
similarities. Hans second assertion that the remains
recovered from Yanbulaq provide evidence of contact
between East and West is tested by quantifying pairwise
differences between samples with Mahalanobis
generalized distance. Patterning of inter-sample affinities
is simplified with two different multivariate techniques:
neighbor joining cluster analysis (Saitou and Nei, 1987)
and principal coordinates analysis (Hair et al., 1971). In
the latter analysis results are ordinated in threedimensional space, and a minimum spanning tree (Sneath
and Sokal, 1973) is imposed to ease interpretation of
intersample associations.

East Meets West at Yanbulaq?

Contrary to the expectations of Hans model, a neighborjoining analysis among males (Fig. 2a) reveals that
Europoid males from Yanbulaq share closest affinities
to Mongoloid males from this same site, followed by
secondary affinities to males from other Tarim Basin
Bronze Age sites. Hans (1998: 561) assertion that the
Mongoloids from Yanbulaq may be identified as related
to Khams Tibetans also appears unsupported, for of all
Mongoloid samples included in this comparison, the
inhabitants of Yanbulaq are most dissimilar to Tibetans.
There also appears no basis to identify the inhabitants of
Yabulaq as Europoids, for none of the Europoid males
from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or males associated with
steppe-influenced archaeological cultures (KOK, TMM;
see Alekshin, 1986; Masson, 1992) exhibit any affinity to
the alleged Europoid males from Yanbulaq. Rather,
apart from other Bronze Age samples from the Tarim
Basin, males from Yanbulaq share closest affinities to
males from the greater Indus Valley.
Principal coordinates analysis yields similar results (Fig.
2b). Europoid and Mongoloid males from Yanbulaq
share closest affinities to one another and to males from
Qwrighul, the earliest of the Tarim Basin sites. None of
the Tarim Basin sites include males with affinities to East
Asian males. Rather, males from later Tarim Basin sites,
such as Alwighul and Krorn, show closest affinities to
western Central Asian males from Sapalli tepe and
Djarkutan. Likewise, none of the males from Yanbulaq,
including those identified by Han as Europoids, exhibit
affinities to males from the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Again,
secondary affinities of Yanbulaq males, and males from
Qwrighul, occur with males from the greater Indus
Valley.

Results
Expectations of Hans model are straightforward. First, if
two biologically very different populations were present
at Yanbulaq, hierarchical cluster analysis should provide
a profound separation between Europoid and
Mongoloid individuals. Second, if Europoids and
Mongoloids were present at Yanbulaq, Europoids
from Yanbulaq (YANE) should be identified as most
similar to Europoids from the Russo-Kazakh steppe and
Mongoloids from Yanbulaq (YANM) should be
identified as most similar to Mongoloids from East
Asia. Individuals from Yanbulaq should exhibit no
affinities to individuals from western Central Asia, the
Iranian Plateau or the Indus Valley since Hans model
does not call for people inhabiting these regions to have
played any role in the formation of the population at
Yanbulaq.

Although Han (1990) classified all of the nearly complete

female crania recovered from Yanbulaq as Mongoloid,
neighbor-joining cluster analysis (Fig. 3a) reveals these
females share no affinities to other females from the
Tarim Basin or to modern East Asian females. Yanbulaq
females also exhibit no affinities to Europoid females of
the Russo-Kazakh steppe or to females associated with
steppe-influenced artifacts. Instead, females from
Yanbulaq share nearly equal affinities to females of
western Central Asia, the greater Indus Valley, and the
Iranian Plateau. This pattern is confirmed by principal
coordinates analysis (Fig. 3b).

Two Biologically Distinct Populations at Yanbulaq?

Each individual cranium was coded by sex, specimen
number, and race identification made by Han (1990).
The dendrogram obtained from hierarchical cluster
analysis of size-standardized individual crania recovered
from Yanbulaq is provided in Figure 1. The results show
no systemic separation between those crania identified by
Han (1990) as Europoid and those identified as
Mongoloid. Instead, the seven Europoid crania are
distributed across five of the six clusters. Likewise there
is no separation between male and female crania. Such

Discussion
Five significant findings may be identified from these
results. First, hierarchical cluster analysis fails to identify
the presence of two biologically very different
populations at Yanbulaq. Second, there is no evidence
that significant gene flow from Russo-Kazakh steppe
118

A VIEW TO THE NORTH: BIOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS ACROSS THE INTER-MONTANE

BORDERLANDS DURING THE LAST TWO MILLENNIA BC
weakens the association between tomb type and racial
type and makes a distinction based on relative status
and/or wealth far more convincing.

populations led to the establishment of the population at

Yanbulaq, or any of the Tarim Basin populations tested
here. Third, there is also no evidence that East Asian
populations, including Tibetans, played any significant
role in the establishment of the population at Yanbulaq.
Fourth, both neighbor-joining cluster analysis and
principal coordinates analysis indicate that Yanbulaq
males share closest affinities to males from the Indus
Valley. Fifth, in contrast to males, females from
Yanbulaq appear to have shared equally close affinities to
females from western Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau
and the greater Indus Valley.

Turning to a more fundamental issue, modern biology is

predicated on the population concept, which emphasizes
that variation among individuals of the same species
exists within any population (Futuyma, 1997). In the bad
old days of physical anthropology, some workers (cf.
Hooton, 1938) attempted to identify racial types that
possessed certain hallmark traits. Such efforts failed
miserably. Unfortunately, Hans (1990, 1998)
identification of Europoids and Mongoloids at
Yanbulaq is grounded in this same typological thinking
that has proven to be of so little utility elsewhere.

Why is there no evidence of two races at Yanbulaq?

The dual race assertion was advanced by Han with little
ancillary support. The strongest support comes from
inhumation context. Three inhumation patterns were
identified at Yanbulaq and designated as types I, II and
III. Mallory and Mair (2000: 141) note that Han found
type I tombs were exclusively Mongoloid while type II
and III tombs show the presence of Caucasoids. The
chronology of the tomb types is unclear, but one type II
tomb has been identified as stratigraphically later than a
type I tomb. Mallory and Mair (2000:141-2) seize upon
this difference to claim, if the distinctions are
chronological then we may be witnessing the
movement of Caucasoid populations into a territory in
which Mongoloid populations had already established
themselves from the east. However, Chen and Hiebert
(1995: 262) observe that, in addition to the more than 100
bronze artifacts associated with these tombs, a few iron
objects were also recovered and all derived from type I
tombs. Using the same logic as Mallory and Mair, this
finding could be interpreted as evidence for an earlier
Caucasoid presence at Yanbulaq followed by a
subsequent Mongoloid presence.

Why is there no evidence for gene flow, let alone outright

colonization, from the Russo-Kazakh steppe?
The battery of artefactual, linguistic and iconographic
evidence marshaled in support of steppe influences is
impressive (Mallory and Mair, 2000), but movement of
artifacts and language distributions do not necessarily
equate to an actual movement of people. As noted by
Lamberg-Karlovsky (2002: 63), ethnicity and language
are not easily linked with an archaeological signature.
The same may also be said for genetic affinity; that is,
ethnicity and language are also not easily linked to a
genetic signature.

As provocative as such findings seem the association

between tomb type, race, and chronology is ambiguous,
for two important points are unresolved. First, how many
burials in type I tombs were recovered but not subjected
to Hans craniometric analysis because of incompleteness
and hence not assigned to a racial type? Second,
although it is clear that individuals identified by Han as
Caucasoid were found in type II and III tombs, did these
tombs also include individuals might have been identified
as Mongoloids had they been more completely
preserved?

An array of recent genetic studies among living Central

and South Asians reveals just how tenuous the
relationship is between ethnicity, language and genetic
affinity. A comparison of genetic distances obtained from
Y-chromosome variations and geographic distances by
Zerjal and coworkers (2002: 474) found cases where
there was a great deal of heterogeneity among
populations who share either geographic proximity or
linguistic similarity as well as cases of genetic similarity
among populations who either speak very different
languages or who occupy widely separated regions.
Similar results were found south of the Hindu Kush by
Qamar and coworkers (2002: 1112). These researchers
found that, apart from the Hazara who were identified as
quite distinct, all other groups exhibited a general
similarity to one another, despite the inclusion of a
population that speaks a linguistic isolate (the Burushos),
one that speaks a Dravidian language (the Brahui) and
one that speaks a Sino-Tibetan language (the Balti).

Chen and Hiebert (1995:262) assert that the while the

typology of the tombs appears clear, the artifact
assemblages associated with each are similar. From this
they suggest variation in tomb type reflects factors other
than chronology and they offer social or economic status
as possible influences. Discarding a chronological
distinction between tomb types, Mallory and Mair (2000:
142) postulate an alternative scenario with Mongoloids
burying their dead with many grave goods in larger
chambers while Caucasoids adopted single-grave burial
in less elaborate tombs. Yet, not knowing the degree of
exclusivity of Hans racial types to tomb types seriously

Iconographic and linguistic evidence for the presence of

Tocharian-speakers within the Tarim Basin postdates the
initial peopling of the Tarim Basin by many centuries
(Mallory and Mair, 2000: 122). Hence, absence of
evidence for gene flow or even outright colonization of
the Tarim Basin from the Russo-Kazakh steppe may
simply be a consequence of a settlement pattern in which
the most valued localities were already occupied by
sedentary agriculturalists, who practiced a farming and
herding economy similar to that found in western Central
Asia, when steppe pastoralist populations first appeared
in this region of eastern Central Asia (Barber, 1999: 150;
119

Brian E. Hemphill

(Mei-cun, 1992: 93). Drawing on historical documents,

Barber (1999: 19) calls for an even later date (120 BC)
for initial substantial movement of Han Chinese, citing
efforts to open up regular trade with populations located
even further west.

Chen and Hiebert, 1995: 257). Indeed, it is intriguing that

prized settlement locations mirror those preferred in
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Chen and Hiebert, 1995:
262). Mair (1995: 299) posits that the inclusion of small,
finely-woven baskets, which often contain grains of
wheat not only serves to link the earliest burials to later
burials but also reveals that agriculture was an important
aspect of their lives. Further, he asserts the early
inhabitants of the Tarim Basin enjoyed a peaceful and
egalitarian lifeway, for their graves show little evidence
of weaponry and none for social stratification (Mair,
1995: 301-302). These are dramatic differences from
graves from the Russo-Kazakh steppe and in greater
accordance with graves associated with the BactriaMargiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) to the west
(Askarov, 1973; Askarov and Abdullaev, 1983) or those
of the greater Indus Valley to the south (Allchin and
Allchin, 1982; Dani, 1967).

A second potential reason this research failed to identify

the presence of Mongoloids at Yanbulaq is because
Khams Tibetans, identified by Han as the purported
source for the Mongoloids at Yanbulaq, may be
profoundly different cranially from the other Mongoloid
samples included in this analysis. Many years ago,
Morant (1924: 2) provided an analysis of Khams Tibetan
crania curated at the British Museum. Morant found these
crania to be distinct from all neighboring Asiatic peoples,
including western and central Tibetans. Nevertheless, he
also found evidence for admixture with southern Chinese
and with other Tibetans, such that these two populations
exhibited closest affinities to Khams Tibetans (Morant,
1924: 5). However, in a surprising comment Morant
(1924: 40) noted, it is probable that the Khams Tibetans
have intermingled to a certain degree with the Chinese
and Tibetans of the A type [western and central
Tibetans], but they have preserved predominantly the
characteristics of an entirely different stock which
resembles the Moriori [aboriginal inhabitants of the
Chatham Islands east of New Zealand believed to be
related to the Maori] as much as any of the Asiatic races.
Though such affinities appear initially improbable, it may
be they represent very ancient connections that date to the
initial dispersal of modern Homo sapiens throughout
Central and Southeast Asia (cf. Passarino et al., 1996).
Such a possibility requires further examination.

Why is there no evidence for gene flow or colonization of

Mongoloid populations into the Tarim Basin?
Han (1998: 561) claimed that two races were present at
Yanbulaq and that those identified as Mongoloid shared
especially close affinities to Khams Tibetans. Yet,
regardless of statistical approach used or which sex forms
the basis of comparison, none of the inhabitants of
Yanbulaq exhibit any affinity to Han Chinese, Nepalese,
or Tibetans. There are at least two possible reasons to
account for such results. First, it may be that substantial
immigration of East Asians into the Tarim Basin simply
occurred after the first half of the first millennium AD,
the period represented by the latest of the samples
included in this analysis. Although Han (1998:568)
admits the timing of initial appearance of Mongoloids
in the Tarim Basin is unclear, he nevertheless claims that
they appeared around 1350 BC, or a bit earlier, and
mainly in the eastern portion of the basin, such as at
Yanbulaq.

How can it be that males from Yanbulaq exhibit affinities

to males from the Indus Valley?
It should be remembered that the Great Silk Road wasnt
a single track running from East to West, but a
comprehensive network with branches to Siberia in the
north and to the Indian subcontinent in the south
(Kuzmina, 1998: 63-64; Mallory and Mair, 2000: 51-52).
Indeed, as pointed out by Chen and Hiebert (1995: 248249) not only is the Tarim Basin linked by wide passes to
eastern Kazakhstan to the northwest and to the Altai
region of southern Siberia to the north, but wide passes
also link the Tarim Basin to the Ferghana Valley to the
west and to the Indus Valley of Pakistan via the
Karakoram Pass to the south. Since this network of interregional trade and communication existed during the first
half of the first millennium AD, it may be that these
connections were of even greater antiquity.
Mair (1995: 296-299) claims the Bronze Age inhabitants
of the Tarim Basin are likely ancestors to the Tocharian
speakers, whose presence was first detected through
decipherment of manuscripts dating to the sixth to eighth
centuries AD. Tocharian monks are depicted in Buddhist
cave sites near Kucha and Mair emphasizes that they are
portrayed as possessing such non-East Asian physical
features as fair hair, lightly pigmented eyes and narrow
noses. A characterization of these monks is given by
Mallory and Mair (2000: 248-249) in a subsection

Other researchers are less sanguine about an early

appearance of East Asian populations. Mair (1995: 292294) envisions a three-part scheme for the peopling of the
Tarim Basin during the Bronze Age. He posits that the
third and final population movement involved
Mongoloid peoples from the East who entered the
region even later than the second movement, an entry of
Caucasoid peoples from the west and southwest
sometime after 500 BC. Mai-cun (1992) notes that while
there is clear evidence for contacts between the Tarim
Basin and points east during the Shang dynasty, this
contact was exclusively from west-to-east. Mei-cun
asserts that this is poignantly attested by small finds
recovered from the tomb of Fu Hao at An-yang in 1976.
Over 1600 small finds were recovered and of these more
than 750 were jade carvings. All of these jade objects
were made from Khotan jade from the area of Mount
Kunlunshan. By contrast, archaeological investigations in
the Tarim Basin consistently demonstrate that objects
commonly associated with Han populations of China,
such as silk fabrics and lacquer wares, do not appear until
a millennium later, during the 7th to 3rd centuries BC
120

A VIEW TO THE NORTH: BIOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS ACROSS THE INTER-MONTANE

BORDERLANDS DURING THE LAST TWO MILLENNIA BC
entitled Knights with Long Swords, and although they
are careful to note the non-European aspects of these
portrayals in both cases, clearly the implication of this
iconographic evidence is clear-gene flow, if not outright
colonization, from Russo-Kazakh steppe populations.

Years ago, Stacul (1992) discovered a series of artifacts

in northern Pakistan he interpreted as evidence of
reciprocal contacts across the Karakoram and Hindu
Kush Mountains between the inhabitants of western
China, western Central Asia and northern Pakistan. Stacul
assigned these finds to Swat Periods III and IV, which
based on their stratigraphic position and associated
radiocarbon dates, derive from the first half of the second
millennium BC. Similarly, Barber (1999: 66) notes that
Good determined the presence of cashmere in the dress
worn by a mummy recovered from the Tarim Basin. The
presence of cashmere indicates that local groups either
kept or had access to goats from the south, from Kashmir
in northern Pakistan and northwestern India. Together,
these finds suggest contacts between the Indus Valley,
Central Asia and western China may have occurred
earlier than the first millennium BC and may have
continued throughout the period encompassed by the
Tarim Basin cranial series analyzed in the current study.

In a similar vein, Barber (1999: 72) asserts that a

substantial number of Uyghurs present today throughout
Xinjiang also possess these features, which she attributes
to a legacy of old intermarriages with the ancient early
arrivals from the west. In an attempt to reinforce her
claim, Barber (1999: 94) draws attention to Steins
identification of the mummy found 15 miles from Loulan
Station as being of the Homo alpinus type. However, it
should be noted this alleged racial type was not
associated with Russo-Kazakh steppe populations, but
with the present population of the Tarim Basin and with
the highland populations of the Pamirs to the west and the
Hindu Kush to the southwest (Stein, 1933:155).

How can it be that Yanbulaq females have equidistant

affinities to females from Central Asia, the Iranian
Plateau, and the Indus Valley?

A second aspect of Tocharian iconography also raises

questions about possible connections between the Tarim
Basin and populations located south of the Hindu Kush.
Mair (1995: 299) notes, that in addition to possessing
non-East Asian physical features, the Buddhist monks
depicted in the cave sites near Kucha are dressed in silks
and they bear an Indian religious mark (a tilaka) on their
foreheads. It has always been assumed that the silks worn
by such monks in post-Han times was of Chinese origin,
but discovery of silk in pre-Han period contexts outside
China raises the question of whether alternative sources
of wild silk may have been developed and used before
silkworms were domesticated in China (Good, 1995:
959). Good (nd) asserts there are several economically
viable wild species of silkworm, some of which are not
indigenous to China, but may be found in South Asia, the
eastern Mediterranean, and even Mongolia. In Central
Asia, pre-Han silk has been found at Niya, Lop Nor and
Loulan in the Tarim Basin, at Ukok in the Altai, and at
Pazyryk in southern Siberia (Good, 1995: 960). Hence, to
unquestioningly assume that such silk is of Chinese
origin is premature.

Recent studies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA: Comas

et al., 1998) and Y-chromosome (Prez-Lezaun et al.,
1999; Zerjal et al., 2002) variation reveal that living
Central Asians are extremely heterogeneous and yield an
interesting pattern. When affinities through the male line
are assessed from Y-chromosome variations, Central
Asian populations are marked by high degree of structure,
in which nearly 24% of all variation occurs between
populations. By contrast, when affinities are traced
through the female line from mtDNA virtually all
differences occur within populations, while there is little
to no differences across populations (Yao et al., 2000).
Comas and coworkers (1998) investigated differences in
mtDNA among Kazakhs, Kirgiz and Uyghurs. They
found linguistic affiliation did not contribute to genetic
variation. A subsequent investigation of Y-chromosome
short tandem repeats in these same individuals by PrezLezaun and coworkers (1999: 215) yielded evidence of
differential mobility by sex across linguistic boundaries.
Specifically, they found that 16% of Y-chromosome
haplotype diversity could be attributed to language group
differences, while differences in mtDNA proved
negligible (-0.5%). As such, it appears that among
modern Central Asians - at least among Kazakhs, Kirgiz
and Uyghurs - female migration may overcome linguistic
barriers with greater facility than male migration. Yao
and coworkers (2000: 177) analyzed mtDNA diversity
among populations of Xinjiang, Qinghai and Yunnan
provinces. Like Comas and coworkers (1998), they also
found few differences across samples. Based on the
results of the study by Prez-Lezaun and coworkers
(1999), Yao and coworkers attributed the lack of
differentiation to high rates of female migration.

Good (1995: 960-961) points out a crucial difference in

the processing of Chinese and non-Chinese silk. Chinese
silk from domesticated Bombyx mori cocoons is
processed by degumming the silk by boiling the cocoon
before the moth emerges. This permits the cocoon to be
unraveled in one continuous filament and hence, no
spinning is required. However, the silkworm dies. On the
other hand, mukta silks were developed in India to avoid
religious taboos against the destruction of life in order to
produce ungummed silk. As Buddhists, it is highly
unlikely the Tocharian monks wore robes of degummed
silk obtained through a process that sacrificed the lives of
the silkworms. Rather, it is more likely they wore robes
made from mukta silks of possible South Asian origin.
Discovery of pre-Han silk at Sapalli tepe (Askarov, 1973)
and its recent discovery at Harappa (Good, nd) raises the
possibility that at least some, if not all, of the pre-Han
silk found in Central Asia may have originated in South
Asia.

Thus, those ethnic groups of living Central Asians that

have been genetically tested share a common pattern.
Data collected within villages that encompass a
121

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substantial number of individuals from a single ethnic

group exhibit considerable variation in mtDNA, but
intervillage comparisons show little variation. The
opposite pattern is found for the Y chromosome. That is,
among males there is little intravillage variation in the Ychromosome, but profound intervillage differences. Since
mtDNA is inherited exclusively through ones mother,
while the Y chromosome is inherited from ones father,
such disparate patterning is the logical outcome of a
marital system in which women move out of their fathers
village upon marriage to the village of their new husband,
while males remain in the villages of their fathers, their
paternal uncles and grandfathers (Seielstad et al., 1998).
It may be that the social system found today in Central
Asia (Prez-Lezaun et al., 1999: 215), in which females
serve as a sort of social mortar connecting together
isolated groups of related males, was also present some
four millennia in the past. If so, this would explain why
females from Central Asia in general, and females from
Yanbulaq in particular, exhibit equidistant affinities to
females from an array of adjacent regions while their
male counterparts do not.

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Fig. 1 Hierarchical cluster analysis of individual crania recovered from Yanbulaq with Wards method (1963). Branch points are Euclidean
distances. Individual crania are coded by sex, specimen number, and race identification according to Han (1990). Example: F21M=
Female, Specimen Number 21, identified by Han (1990) as Mongoloid.

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A VIEW TO THE NORTH: BIOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS ACROSS THE INTER-MONTANE

BORDERLANDS DURING THE LAST TWO MILLENNIA BC

a)

b)

Fig. 2 Patterning of intersample affinities and differences among males obtained from the diagonal matrix of pairwise Mahalanobis
generalized distances. (a) neighbor-joining cluster analysis, (b) principal coordinates analysis. Sample abbreviations: Russo-Kazakh steppe
and steppe affiliated: ADM= Andronovo/Minusinsk, AFA= Afanasievo/ Altai, AFM= Afansievo/Minusinsk, AND=
Andonovo/Kazakhstan, KAM= Karasuk/Minusinsk, KOK= Kokcha III, SAMB= Samtavro B, TMM= Tigrovaja and Makoni Mor; Eastern
Central Asia and East Asia: ALW= Alwighul, AYG= An-yang, HAI= Hainan, KRO= Krorn, NEP= Nepalese, QAW= Qwrighul, TIB=
Tibetans, YANE= Yanbulaaq Europoids, YANM= Yanbulaq Mongoloids; Western Central Asia: ALT= Altyn depe, DJR= Djarkutan,
Djarkutan period, GKS= Geoksyur, KAR= Kara depe, KUZ= Djarkutan, Kuzali period, MOL= Djarkutan, Molali period, SAP= Sapalli tepe;
Iranian Plateau: SHS= Shahr-I Sokhta, TH2= Tepe Hissar, period II, TH3= Tepe Hissar, period III; Greater Indus Valley: CEMH= Harappa,
Cemetery H, HAR= Harappa, Cemetery R37; TMG= Timagarha.

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Brian E. Hemphill

a)

b)

Fig. 3 Patterning of intersample affinities and differences among females obtained from the diagonal matrix of pairwise Mahalanobis
generalized distances. (a) neighbor-joining cluster analysis, (b) principal coordinates analysis. Sample abbreviations same as in Figure 2,
except YAN= Yanbulaq (Mongoloids only).

126