Mummies of Urumchi

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>Georg at home.ivm.de writes:

>So we have a) a continuous record of mummies from the earliest times down to
>the times of the Tocharian texts (with a clear and foolproof indication that
>the most recent ones were Tocharian speaking - I mean an indication other than
>their being palefaces ?

-- yes.  The texts show that in historic times Tocharian was being spoken in
those areas.

b) it is common knowledge that the people who wrote/read/used the Tocharian
texts *were* palefaces in the first place and

-- yes; their own art depicts them as of the same type as the mummies, the
chinese chronicles record them as pale, big-nosed and with peculiar light-
colored eyes and hair.

c) the identification of race and language is correct and the one thing to do
after all ?

-- as Cavalli-Sforza points out, while there's no one-to-one correpsondence
between genes and language, there are consistent links.  Language barriers
tend to correspond with genetic clines, at least in the Old World.

(Areas of post-Renaissance European expansion are another matter.)