Location of the Tarim mummies (), with other contemporary cultures c. 2000 BCE
Geographical range
Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin
Period
Bronze Age
Dates
c. 2100 BCE - 1 BCE
Preceded by
Afanasievo culture
Followed by
Tocharians
The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE,[1][2][3] with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BCE.[4][5] The Tarim population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived circa 2000 BCE in what was formerly a freshwater environment, which has now become desertified.[6]
A genomic study published in 2021 found that these early mummies (dating from 2,135 to 1,623 BCE) had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry (ANE, about 72%), with smaller admixture from Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA, about 28%), but no detectable Western Steppe-related ancestry.[7][8] They formed a genetically isolated local population that "adopted neighbouring pastoralist and agriculturalist practices, which allowed them to settle and thrive along the shifting riverine oases of the Taklamakan Desert."[9] These mummified individuals were long suspected to have been "Proto-Tocharian-speaking pastoralists", ancestors of the Tocharians, but this has now been largely discredited by their absence of a genetic connection with Indo-European-speaking migrants, particularly the Afanasievo or BMAC cultures.[10]
Later Tarim Mummies dated to the Iron Age (1st millennium BCE), such as those of the Subeshi culture, have characteristics closely resembling those of the Saka (Scythian) Pazyryk culture of the Altai Mountains, in particular in the areas of weaponry, horse gear and garments.[11] They are candidates as the Iron Age predecessors of the Tocharians.[12] The rather recent easternmost mummies at Qumul (Yanbulaq culture, 1100-500 BCE), provide the earliest Asian mummies found in the Tarim Basin, and have a mix of "Europoid" and "Mongoloid" mummies.[13][2]
^Wong, Edward (18 November 2008). "The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn't Care to Listen To". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
^ abMallory & Mair 2000, p. 237.
^Wade, Nicholas (15 March 2010). "A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
^School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, China, (2021). "The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies", in ENA, European Nucleotide Archive.
^Shuicheng, Li (2003). "Ancient Interactions in Eurasia and Northwest China: Revisiting J. G. Andersson's Legacy". Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. 75. Stockholm: Fälth & Hässler: 13. "Biological anthropological research indicates that the physical characteristics of those buried at Gumugou cemetery along the Kongque River near Lop Nur in Xinjiang are very similar to those of the Andronovo culture and Afanasievo culture people from Siberia in Southern Russia. This suggests that all of these individuals belong to the Caucasian physical type. Additionally, excavations in 2002 by Xinjiang archaeologists at the site of Xiaohe cemetery, first discovered by the Swedish archaeologist Folke Bergman, uncovered mummies and wooden human effigies that clearly have Europoid features. According to the preliminary excavation report, the cultural features and chronology of this site are said to be quite similar to those of Gumugou. Other sites in Xinjiang also contain both individuals with Caucasian features and ones with Mongolian features. For example, this pattern occurs at the Yanbulark cemetery in Xinjiang, but individuals with Mongoloid features are clearly dominant. The above evidence is enough to show that, starting around 2,000 B.C., some so-called primitive Caucasians expanded eastward to the Xinjiang area as far as the area around Hami and Lop Nur. By the end of the second millennium, another group of people from Central Asia started to move over the Pamirs and gradually dispersed in southern Xinjiang. These western groups mixed with local Mongoloids resulting in an amalgamation of culture and race in middle Xinjiang east to the Tianshan."
^Doumani Dupuy, Paula N. (November 2021). "The unexpected ancestry of Inner Asian mummies". Nature. 599 (7884): 204–206. Bibcode:2021Natur.599..204D. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-02872-1. PMID 34707262. S2CID 240072156. The basin holds several intact Bronze Age cemeteries of a founding population known as the agropastoral Xiaohe culture, which formed around 2100 BC in what were then freshwater environments (the Bronze Age spanned from about 3000 to 1000 BC).
^Zhang 2021, "Using qpAdm, we modelled the Tarim Basin individuals as a mixture of two ancient autochthonous Asian genetic groups: the ANE, represented by an Upper Palaeolithic individual from the Afontova Gora site in the upper Yenisei River region of Siberia (AG3) (about 72%), and ancient Northeast Asians, represented by Baikal_EBA (about 28%) (Supplementary Data 1E and Fig. 3a). Tarim_EMBA2 from Beifang can also be modelled as a mixture of Tarim_EMBA1 (about 89%) and Baikal_EBA (about 11%).".
^Nägele, Kathrin; Rivollat, Maite; Yu, He; Wang, Ke (2022). "Ancient genomic research – From broad strokes to nuanced reconstructions of the past". Journal of Anthropological Sciences. 100 (100): 193–230. doi:10.4436/jass.10017. PMID 36576953. Combining genomic and proteomic evidence, researchers revealed that these earliest residents in the Tarim Basin carried genetic ancestry inherited from local Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, carried no steppe-related ancestry, but consumed milk products, indicating communications of persistence practices independent from genetic exchange.
^Zhang 2021.
^Zhang 2021, "Our results do not support previous hypotheses for the origin of the Tarim mummies, who were argued to be Proto-Tocharian-speaking pastoralists descended from the Afanasievo, or to have originated among the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex or Inner Asian Mountain Corridor cultures. Instead, although Tocharian may have been plausibly introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants during the Early Bronze Age, we find that the earliest Tarim Basin cultures appear to have arisen from a genetically isolated local population that adopted neighbouring pastoralist and agriculturalist practices, which allowed them to settle and thrive along the shifting riverine oases of the Taklamakan Desert.".
^Li, Xiao; Wagner, Mayke; Wu, Xiaohong; Tarasov, Pavel; Zhang, Yongbin; Schmidt, Arno; Goslar, Tomasz; Gresky, Julia (21 March 2013). "Archaeological and palaeopathological study on the third/second century BC grave from Turfan, China: Individual health history and regional implications". Quaternary International. 290–291: 335–343. Bibcode:2013QuInt.290..335L. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2012.05.010. ISSN 1040-6182. The whole graveyard including tomb M2 belongs to the Subeixi culture, associated with the Cheshi (Chü-shih) state known from Chinese historical sources (Sinor, 1990). Archaeological and historical data attest it as society with a developed agro-pastoral economy, that existed in and north of the Turfan Basin (Fig. 1) during the first millennium BC. The Subeixi weaponry, horse gear and garments (Mallory and Mair, 2000; Lü, 2001) resemble those of the Pazyryk culture (Molodin and Polos'mak, 2007), suggesting contacts between Subeixi and the Scythians living in the Altai Mountains.
^Mallory, J. P. (2015). "The Problem of Tocharian Origins: An Archaeological Perspective" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers: 24.
^Benjamin, Craig (3 May 2018). Empires of Ancient Eurasia: The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE. Cambridge University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-108-63540-0. ... the fact that in cemeteries such as Yanbulaq both Europoid and Mongoloid mummies have been found together, also indicates some degree of interaction between existing farming populations and newly arrived nomadic migrants from the West.
The Tarimmummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries...
earliest Tarim people arose from locals of primarily Ancient North Eurasian descent with significant Northeast Asian admixture. The Tarimmummies have been...
earlier Tarimmummies could be attributed to their Ancient North Eurasian ancestry. Previous craniometric analyses on the early Tarimmummies found that...
stone, with weapons A genomic study published in 2021 found that the Tarimmummies (c. 2000 BCE) had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry (c...
3,500–2,500 BC) in Siberia, north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture. The earliest Tarimmummies date from c. 1,800 BC, but it is unclear whether...
China Tarim Basin, China Tarimmummies, a series of mummies which have been excavated at Niya, an oasis in the Tarim Basin Tarim, the monotheistic god worshiped...
Eurasian ancestry, entered continental Europe. A 2021 genetic study on the Tarimmummies found that they were primarily descended from a population represented...
settlements, as well as several of the Tarimmummies, along its ancient shoreline. Former water resources of the Tarim River and Lop Nur nurtured the kingdom...
Xinjiang, at the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin. The Subeshi culture contributes some of the later period TarimMummies. It might be associated with the...
a mummy found[when?] in the town Cherchen, located in current Xinjiang region of China. The mummy is a member of the group known as Tarimmummies. His...
reason, over 200 Tarimmummies, which are over 4,000 years old, were excavated from a cemetery in the present-day Xinjiang region. The mummies were found buried...
named for the desert Tarim Basin – Endorheic basin in Xinjiang, China Tarimmummies – Series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin Tazhong, town at...
are so well-preserved that they have often been referred to as the "Tarimmummies". The Xiaohe remains have attracted considerable attention, particularly...
the Tarimmummies, named after where they were found, the Tarim Basin. For many years, the Chinese government forbade the testing of the mummy's DNA,...
Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which dated from 1100 to 500 BCE, 21 of which are Asian—the earliest Asian mummies found in the Tarim Basin—and the remaining...
Turgun Almas claimed that Tarimmummies were Uyghurs because the earliest Uyghurs practiced shamanism and the buried mummies' orientation suggests that...
follows the Afanasievo culture, and is contemporary with the early TarimMummies to the south and the Okunev culture to the north. The Chemurchek burials...
Afanasievo and the Tarimmummies. A genomic study published in 2021 found that the population of earliest Tarim Basin cultures (the Tarimmummies, dated to c...
Yarkand. A number of mummies, now known as the Tarimmummies, have been found in Loulan and in its surrounding areas. One female mummy has been dated to...
Ancient North Eurasian and Northeast Asians descent. The oldest Tarimmummies, found in the Tarim Basin, are dated to the 2nd millennium BCE. In the first millennium...
in 2003 at Xiaohe Cemetery in Lop Nur, Xinjiang. She is one of the Tarimmummies, and is known as M11 for the tomb she was found in. Buried approximately...
auburn hair have been discovered in various parts of Asia, including the Tarimmummies of Xinjiang, China. In Chinese sources, ancient Kyrgyz people were described...
chieftains. These burials show striking similarities with the earlier Tarimmummies at Gumugou. The Issyk kurgan of south-eastern Kazakhstan, and the Ordos...
The Fire Mummies of the Philippines, also known as the Kabayan Mummies, Benguet Mummies, or Ibaloi Mummies, are a group of mummies found along the mountain...
The Tarim River (Chinese: 塔里木河; pinyin: Tǎlǐmù Hé; Uyghur: تارىم دەرياسى, romanized: Tarim deryasi), known in Sanskrit as the Śītā, is an endorheic river...
associated them with artifacts of extinct cultures in the Tarim Basin, such as the Tarimmummies and texts recording the Tocharian languages, there is no...
of Egyptian mummies (royalty) List of Egyptian mummies (officials, nobles, and commoners) Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mummies. List of DNA...