The Tarim mummies are a series of

mummies A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and Organ (biology), organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to Chemical substance, chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the ...

discovered in the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...

in present-day

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE, with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BCE.School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, China, (2021)
"The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies"
in ENA, European Nucleotide Archive. The Tarim population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived c. 2000 BCE in what was formerly a freshwater environment, which has now become desertified. 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 In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) refers to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the people of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture () and populations closely related to them, such as the Upper Paleolithic individ ...

ancestry (ANE, about 72%), with smaller admixture from

Ancient Northeast Asians In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA), also known as Amur ancestry, is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 7th–4th millennia before present, in far easte ...

(ANA, about 28%), but no detectable Western Steppe-related ancestry. 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." These mummified individuals were long suspected to have been "

Proto-Tocharian Proto-Tocharian, also spelled Proto-Tokharian ( or ), is the reconstructed proto-language of the extinct Tocharian branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Tocharian is the unattested reconstructed ancestor of an Indo-European eponymous e ...

-speaking pastoralists", ancestors of the

Tocharians The Tocharians or Tokharians ( ; ) were speakers of the Tocharian languages, a group of Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from the 6th and 7th centuries, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinj ...

, but this has now been largely discredited by their absence of a genetic connection with

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

-speaking migrants, particularly the

Afanasievo The Afanasievo culture, or Afanasevo culture (Afanasevan culture) ( ''Afanas'yevskaya kul'tura''), is an early archaeological culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Hollow, Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the eneolithic ...

or BMAC cultures. Later Tarim Mummies dated to the Iron Age (1st millennium BCE), such as those of the

Subeshi culture The Subeshi culture (; 1100–100 BCE), also rendered as Subeishi culture or Subeixi culture, is an Iron Age culture from the area of Shanshan County, Turfan, Xinjiang, at the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin. The Subeshi culture contributes some ...

, have characteristics closely resembling those of the

Saka The Saka, Old Chinese, old , Pinyin, mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit (Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples, Eastern Iranian peoples who lived in the Eurasian ...

(

Scythian The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC fr ...

)

Pazyryk culture The Pazyryk culture ( ''Pazyrykskaya'' kul'tura) is a Saka (Central Asian Scythian cultures, Scythian) nomadic Iron Age archaeological culture (6th to 3rd centuries BC) identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans found in the Siberian ...

of the

Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The ...

, in particular in the areas of weaponry, horse gear and garments. They are candidates as the Iron Age predecessors of the

. The rather recent easternmost mummies at

Qumul Hami ( zh, c=哈密) or Kumul () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Xinjiang, China. It is well known for sweet Hami melons. In early 2016, the former Hami county-level city merged with Hami Prefecture to form the Hami prefecture-level city ...

(

Yanbulaq culture The Yanbulaq culture (Ch: 焉不拉克文化 or 焉布拉克文化, Yanbulake wenhua, 1100–500 BCE) was an ancient culture based on the tombs of the Yanbulaq Cemetery (Chinese 焉不拉克古墓群, Pinyin Yānbùlākè gǔmùqún or焉不拉� ...

, 1100–500 BCE), provide the earliest Asian mummies found in the Tarim Basin, and have a mix of "Europoid" and "Mongoloid" mummies.

Archaeological record

At the beginning of the 20th century, European explorers such as

Sven Hedin Sven Anders Hedin, KNO1kl RVO,Wennerholm, Eric (1978) ''Sven Hedin – En biografi'', Bonniers, Stockholm (19 February 1865 – 26 November 1952) was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, travel writer and illustrator ...

Albert von Le Coq Albert von Le Coq (; 8 September 1860 in Berlin, Prussia – 21 April 1930 in Berlin, Weimar Republic) was a Prussian/German brewery owner and wine merchant, who at the age of 40 began to study archaeology.''Schatzjagd an der Seidenstraße.'' A fi ...

and Sir

Aurel Stein Sir Marc Aurel Stein, (; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at Indian universities. ...

all recounted their discoveries of

desiccated Desiccation is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. A desiccant is a hygroscopic (attracts and holds water) substance that induces or sustains such a state in its local vicinity in a moderately sealed container. ...

bodies in their search for

antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean such as the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt, and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures such as Ancient Persia (Iran). Artifact ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. Since then, numerous other mummies have been found and analyzed, many of them now displayed in the museums of Xinjiang. Most of these mummies were found on the eastern end of the

(around the area of Lopnur, Subeshi near

Turpan Turpan () or Turfan ( zh, s=吐鲁番) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 693,988 (2020). The historical center of the ...

Loulan Loulan ( zh, t=, p=Lóulán <

Eastern Han Chinese

''lo-lɑn'' <

Kumul), or along the southern edge of the Tarim Basin (

Khotan Hotan (also known by #Etymology, other names) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region in Northwestern China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become an ...

, Niya, and

Cherchen The oasis town of Qiemo or Cherchen (, ; Uighur: Qarqan, also spelled Charchan) is the capital of Qiemo County, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. It is on the Qiemo River and at the foot of the Qilian Mountains, on the ...

Qiemo Qiemo may refer to: * Qiemo County Qiemo County ( zh, c= ) as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Qarqan County ( Uyghur: ; zh, c=恰尔羌县), is a county under the administration of the Bayin'gholin Mongol Autonom ...

). According to , the earliest Tarim mummies, found at Qäwrighul (Gumugou) and dated to 2135–1939 BCE, were classified in a

craniometric Craniometry is measurement of the cranium (the main part of the skull), usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is distin ...

analysis as belonging to a "Proto-Europoid" type, whose closest affiliation is to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

populations of southern

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, Central Asia, and the

Lower Volga The Volga region, known as the ( , ; rus, Поволжье, r=Povolžje, p=pɐˈvoɫʐje; ), is a historical region in Russia that encompasses the drainage basin of the Volga River, the longest river in Europe, in central and southern European ...

. A revised craniometric analyses by on the early Tarim mummies (Qäwrighul) failed to demonstrate close phenetic affinities to "Europoid populations", but rather found that they formed their own cluster, distinct from the European-related Steppe pastoralists of the

Andronovo The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1150 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo Problem: Studies of Cultural Genesis in the Eurasian Bronze Age" in Open Archaeology 202 ...

and Afanasievo cultures, or the inhabitants of the Western Asian BMAC culture. Later Tarim mummies displayed varying affinities with Andronovo-like, BMAC-like or Han-like populations, suggesting different waves of migration into the Tarim basin. Notable mummies are the tall, red-haired "

Chärchän man Cherchen Man or Chärchän Man or Ur-David is the modern name given to a mummy found in the town Cherchen, located in current Xinjiang region of China. The mummy is a member of the group known as Tarim mummies. His naturally-Mummy, mummified remai ...

" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BCE); his son (1000 BCE), a 1-year-old baby with brown hair protruding from under a red and blue felt cap, with two stones positioned over its eyes; the "Hami Mummy" (c. 1400–800 BCE), a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi" (4th or 3rd century BCE), who wore black felt conical hats with a flat brim. Also found at Subeshi was a man with traces of a surgical operation on his abdomen; the incision is sewn up with sutures made of horsehair. Many of the mummies have been found in very good condition, owing to the dryness of the desert and the desiccation it produced in the corpses. The mummies share many typical Caucasian body features, and many of them have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. Their costumes, and especially

textiles Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

, may indicate a common origin with Indo-European

neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

clothing techniques or a common low-level textile technology. Chärchän man wore a red

twill Twill is a type of textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and d ...

tunic and

tartan Tartan or plaid ( ) is a patterned cloth consisting of crossing horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours, forming repeating symmetrical patterns known as ''setts''. Originating in woven wool, tartan is most strongly associated wi ...

leggings. Textile expert

Elizabeth Wayland Barber Elizabeth Jane Wayland "E.J.W." Barber ( Wayland; born 1940) is an American scholar and expert on archaeology, linguistics, textiles, and folk dance as well as professor emerita of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College. Early life Eliz ...

, who examined the tartan-style cloth, discusses similarities between it and fragments recovered from

salt mines Salt mining extracts natural salt deposits from underground. The mined salt is usually in the form of halite (commonly known as rock salt), and extracted from evaporite formations. History Before the advent of the modern internal combust ...

associated with the

Hallstatt culture The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western Europe, Western and Central European archaeological culture of the Late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age (Hallstatt A, Hallstatt B) from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and Early Iron Age Europe (Hallst ...

. As a result of the arid conditions and exceptional preservation, tattoos have been identified on mummies from several sites around the Tarim Basin, including Qäwrighul,

Yanghai The Subeshi culture (; 1100–100 BCE), also rendered as Subeishi culture or Subeixi culture, is an Iron Age culture from the area of Shanshan County, Turfan, Xinjiang, at the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin. The Subeshi culture contributes some ...

Shengjindian The Subeshi culture (; 1100–100 BCE), also rendered as Subeishi culture or Subeixi culture, is an Iron Age culture from the area of Shanshan County, Turfan, Xinjiang, at the eastern edge of the Tarim Basin. The Subeshi culture contributes some ...

, Shanpula (Sampul), Zaghunluq, and Qizilchoqa. It has been asserted that the textiles found with the mummies are of an early European textile type based on close similarities to fragmentary textiles found in salt mines in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, dating from the second millennium BCE. Anthropologist Irene Good, a specialist in early Eurasian textiles, noted the woven diagonal twill pattern indicated the use of a rather sophisticated loom and said that the textile is "the easternmost known example of this kind of weaving technique". The cemetery at

Yanbulaq The Yanbulaq culture (Ch: 焉不拉克文化 or 焉布拉克文化, Yanbulake wenhua, 1100–500 BCE) was an ancient culture based on the tombs of the Yanbulaq Cemetery (Chinese 焉不拉克古墓群, Pinyin Yānbùlākè gǔmùqún or焉不拉� ...

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 eight of which are of the same Caucasian physical type as found at Qäwrighul.

Genetic studies

In 1995, Mair claimed that "the earliest mummies in the Tarim Basin were exclusively

Caucasoid The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, dependin ...

, or

Europoid The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, dependin ...

" with east Asian migrants arriving in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin around 3,000 years ago while the

Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...

peoples arrived around the year 842. In trying to trace the origins of these populations, Victor Mair's team suggested that they may have arrived in the region by way of the

Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a Mountain range, range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya ...

about 5,000 years ago. Mair has claimed that: In 2007, the Chinese government allowed a

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural sc ...

team headed by

Spencer Wells Rush Spencer Wells (born April 6, 1969) is an American geneticist, anthropologist, author and entrepreneur. He co-hosts The Insight podcast with Razib Khan. Wells led The Genographic Project from 2005 to 2015, as an Explorer-in-Residence at ...

to examine the mummies' DNA. Wells was able to extract undegraded DNA from the internal tissues. The scientists extracted enough material to suggest the Tarim Basin was continually inhabited from 2000 BCE to 300 BCE and preliminary results indicate the people, rather than having a single origin, originated from Europe,

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

, Indus Valley and other regions yet to be determined. A 2008 study by

Jilin University Jilin University (JLU) is a public university in the city of Changchun, Jilin, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. History Founded ...

showed that the Yuansha population has relatively close relationships with the modern populations of South Central Asia and

Indus Valley The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the disp ...

, as well as with the ancient population of Chawuhu. Between 2009 and 2015, the remains of 92 individuals found at the Xiaohe Tomb complex were analyzed for

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the Y ...

and

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...

markers. Genetic analyses of the mummies showed that the maternal lineages of the Xiaohe people originated from both East Asia and West Eurasia, whereas the paternal lineages all originated from West Eurasia. The East Eurasian mtDNA carried by the Tarim mummies is mtDNA haplogroup C and the particular subclade found in the Tarim mummies originates from southeast Siberians like Udeghe and

Evenks The Evenki, also known as the Evenks and formerly as the Tungus, are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Evenki are recognised as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, indigenous peoples of the Russi ...

and not from East Asians, who carry mtDNA haplogroup C at a far lower rate and carry different subclades of mtDNA C.

Mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...

analysis showed that maternal lineages carried by the people at Xiaohe included mtDNA

haplogroup A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the , ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and ) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a sing ...

s H, K, U5, U7, U2e, T and R*, which are now most common in West Eurasia. Also found were haplogroups common in modern populations from East Asia: B5, D and

G2a G2A.COM Limited (commonly referred to as G2A) is a digital marketplace headquartered in the Netherlands, with offices in Poland and Hong Kong. The site operates in the resale of gaming offers and others digital items by the use of redemption k ...

. Haplogroups now common in Central Asian or Siberian populations included: C4 and C5. Haplogroups later regarded as typically South Asian included M5 and M*. Li et al. (2010) found that nearly all – 11 out of 12 males, or around 92% – belonged to

Y-DNA haplogroup In human genetics, a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by specific mutations in the non- recombining portions of DNA on the male-specific Y chromosome (Y-DNA). Individuals within a haplogroup share similar numbers of sh ...

R1a1a-M198, which are now most common in Northern India and Eastern Europe; the remaining one belonged to the exceptionally rare paragroup K* (M9) from Asia. The geographic location of this admixing is unknown, although south Siberia is likely. In 2021 the School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, China, analyzed 13 individuals from the Tarim basin, dated to c. 2100–1700 BCE, and assigned 2 to Y-haplogroup R1b1b-PH155/PH4796 (R1b1c in ISOGG2016), 1 – to Y-haplogroup R1-PF6136 (xR1a, xR1b1a).

Derivation from Ancient North Eurasians

A 2021 genetic study on the Tarim mummies (13 mummies, including 11 from

Xiaohe Cemetery The Xiaohe Cemetery (, 'little river cemetery'), also known as Ördek's Necropolis, is a Bronze Age site located to the west of Lop Nur, in Xinjiang, Western China. It contains about 330 tombs, about 160 of which were looted by grave robbers be ...

, ranging from 2,135 to 1,623 BCE) found that they were most closely related to an earlier identified group called the

s, particularly the population represented by the '' Afontova Gora 3'' specimen (AG3), genetically displaying "high affinity" with it. The genetic profile of the ''Afontova Gora 3'' individual represented about 72% of the ancestry of the Tarim mummies from Xiaohe, while the remaining 28% of their ancestry was derived from

(ANA, Early Bronze Age

Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast. At —slightly larger tha ...

populations).: "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%)." Tarim mummies from Beifang have a slightly higher amount of ANA ancestry and can be modelled as having 89% Xiaohe-like ancestry and about 11% ANA ancestry. The Tarim mummies are thus one of the rare

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

populations who derive most of their ancestry from the

Ancient North Eurasians In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) refers to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the people of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture () and populations closely related to them, such as the Upper Paleolithic individ ...

(ANE, specifically the Mal'ta and Afontova Gora populations), despite their distance in time (around 14,000 years).: "The Tarim mummies are among only a few known Holocene populations that derive the majority of their ancestry from Pleistocene ANE groups, who once made up the huntergatherer populations of southern Siberia, and which are represented by individual genomes from the archaeological sites of Mal'ta (MA-1)29 and Afontova Gora (AG3). (...) The Tarim mummies are currently the best representative of the pre-pastoralist ANE-related population that once inhabited Central Asia and southern Siberia (Extended Data Fig. 2A), even though Tarim_EMBA1 postdates these populations in time." More than any other ancient population, the Tarim mummies can be considered as "the best representatives" of the Ancient North Eurasians. When compared with other ANE-derived Holocene poulations, the early Tarim mummies from Xiaohe ("Tarim_EMBA1") display the highest genetic affinity to Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers from the

(5500–3500 BCE). Tarim_EMBA1 and Altai hunter-gatherers can be successfully modeled from each other in both directions: Altai hunter-gatherers can be modeled as a 2-source admixture between Tarim_EMBA1 and

Ancient Paleo-Siberian In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Paleo-Siberian is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 15th-10th millennia before present, in northern and northeastern Siberia. The Ancien ...

s, while conversely, Tarim_EMBA1 can be modeled as an even mixture of Altai hunter-gatherers and the ANE-genome AG3 from Afontova Gora. Tests on their genetic legacy also found that many groups in

and

derive varying degrees of ancestry from a population related to the Tarim mummies. The

Tajik people Tajik, Tajikistan or Tajikistani may refer to. Someone or something related to Tajikistan: Tajik * Tajiks, an ethnic group in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan * Tajik language, the official language of Tajikistan * Tajik alphabet, Alphabet u ...

show the relative highest affinity with the Tarim mummies, although their main ancestry is linked to Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists (

Western Steppe Herders In archaeogenetics, the term Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists, is the name given to a distinct ancestral component first identified in individuals from the Chalcolithic steppe around the start of the 5th millennium B ...

Genetic ancestry and admixture of ancient populations of Eurasia

Posited origins

Mallory and Mair (2000) propose the movement of at least two Caucasian physical types into the Tarim Basin. The authors associate these types with the Tocharian and

Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...

(

) branches of the

Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

, respectively. However, archaeology and linguistics professor

cautions against assuming the mummies spoke Tocharian, noting a gap of about a thousand years between the mummies and the documented Tocharians: "people can change their language at will, without altering a single gene or freckle". On the other hand, linguistics professor Ronald Kim argues that the amount of divergence between the attested Tocharian languages necessitates that Proto-Tocharian must have preceded their attestation by a millennium or so. This would coincide with the timeframe during which the Tarim Basin culture was in the region. B. E. Hemphill's biodistance analysis of cranial metrics (as cited in and ) has questioned the identification of the Tarim Basin population as European, noting that the earlier population forms their own distinct cluster and having closer affinities to two specimens from the Harappan site of the Indus Valley civilisation, while the later Tarim population displays closer affinities with the

Oxus River The Amu Darya ( ),() also shortened to Amu and historically known as the Oxus ( ), is a major river in Central Asia, which flows through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Rising in the Pamir Mountains, north of the Hindu Ku ...

valley population. Because craniometry can produce results which make no sense at all (e.g. the close relationship between

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

populations in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

) and therefore lack any historical meaning, any putative genetic relationship must be consistent with geographical plausibility and have the support of other evidence. Han Kangxin, who examined the skulls of 302 mummies, found the closest relatives of the earlier Tarim Basin population in the populations of the

Afanasevo culture The Afanasievo culture, or Afanasevo culture (Afanasevan culture) ( ''Afanas'yevskaya kul'tura''), is an early archaeological culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the eneolithic era, 3300 to 2 ...

situated immediately north of the

and the

Andronovo culture The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1150 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo Problem: Studies of Cultural Genesis in the Eurasian Bronze Age" in Open Archaeology 202 ...

that spanned

and reached southwards into West

and the Altai. It is the Afanasevo culture to which trace the earliest Bronze Age settlers of the Tarim and

basins. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BCE) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the

Eurasian Steppe The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Europea ...

yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture (c. 2000–900 BCE) enough to isolate the

Tocharian languages The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( ; ), also known as the ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean languages, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants o ...

from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like

satemization Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An ...

. Mair concluded: note the existence of an additional physical type at Alwighul (700–1 BCE) and Krorän (200 CE) different from the earlier one found at Qäwrighul (1800 BCE) and Yanbulaq (1100–500 BCE), while finding no evidence of significant Steppe-related contributions to these remains: