Mummies of Urumchi

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>Georg at home.ivm.de writes:

>but our Tokharian texts are from the early Middle ages, and the mummies are
>*millennia* earlier.

-- no, the mummies are _continuous_ from millenia earlier up until attested
Tocharian.  The physical type remains constant, and the material culture shows
a smooth development over time.  When a new language comes in (Uighur) so does
a new physical type.

The material culture (textiles, etc.) also shows clear links further west.

Old Chinese also has a fund of early Indo-European loanwords, some of them
identifiably Tocharian (or proto-Tocharian, to be picky).  And Tocharian
demonstrably separated from the IE mainstream rather early, and shows no close
affinities with Indo-Iranian.  It doesn't even have many early loanwords from
Indo-Iranian.

This means that Tocharian had to be isolated from the otherwise-predominant
Indo-Iranian linguistic environment.  Do you have a better place in mind to be
isolated _in_ than the Bronze Age Tarim Basin?

>isn't the simple identification of those two entities (the mummies -
>Tokharians) an oversimplification?

-- no.  Not by the usual standards of the field.