The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West by J.P. Mallory

The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West Reviews

• 
  saïd

  I cannot… fucking… believe that this book, which was published in 2000, actually uses such outdated and racist terminology as “Mongoloid” with apparently zero scrupules.
  
  BUT FIRST…
  Before I get started on complaining about all the shit I hated, here are some things I liked:
  
  ★ The photographs and illustrations (190), even those in greyscale, were very helpful for visualising the artefacts or sites.
  ★ There’s a chapter titled “The Testimony of the Hoe.”
  
  And… that’s about it. Sorry, I really have a bone to pick with this book, apparently.
  
  HERE ARE SOME DATA
  ★ Times the word “Caucasoid” appears in the book:　　　77
  ★ Times the word “Mongoloid” appears:　　　57
  ★ Times the word “Europoid” appears:　　　29
  ★ Pages the uncritical explanation of phrenology occupies:　　　8
  ★ Times the word “Alpine” is used as some sort of racial group:　　　6*
  ★ Times the “Caucasoids” were credited for East Asian inventions (including but not limited to the cultivation of silkworms):　　　oh god I lost count after the Xiongnu were positioned as white people against whom the Han Chinese had functionally no recourse due to their apparently superior white people technology.
  
  *(Including once to describe Nikita Khrushchev).
  
  HERE ARE SOME QUOTES
  ★ “What is this tall, blond man doing here in the middle of Central Asia where almost every person one sees today is much shorter and has black hair?” (p. 9)
  
  ★ “They are clearly of Caucasoid/Europoid extraction (long noses, deep-set eyes, blondish, light-brown or red hair, and so forth). The men are fully bearded and the women have long, braided hair.” (p. 16)
  
  ★ “If a Greek or any other European wished to trek eastwards and avoid lands teeming with the snub-nosed, bald-headed, one-eyed cannibals and griffins, then there was another route through the great Persian empire.” (p. 45)
  
  ★ “The populations of Kucha were particularly noted for their musical talent where they excelled on flutes and stringed instruments. So impressed were the Chinese by Kuchean music that the celebrated Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. AD 712–756) completely reorganized the instrumentation of China to accommodate Kuchean music (among the stringed instruments were some of the earliest precursors of the violin). Apparently, in a reversal of ethnic stereotyping, in the eyes of the medieval Chinese it was the European barbarians who possessed ‘a great sense of rhythm’ and Kucha was the Harlem of the Tang dynasty.” (p. 76)
  
  ★ “The Xiongnu (pronounced ‘Shyoongnoo’) were a pastoral nomadic people…” (p. 87)*
  
  (*It should go without saying, but that is not the correct pronunciation; in fact, it’s a belittlingly juvenile oversimplification. ‘X’ is only a ‘sh’ sound in certain Chinese dialects or languages, such as “standard” Mandarin—based on the Beijing dialect—while a majority of speakers of Chinese languages pronounce ‘x’ as more of a ‘s’ sound. Even saying “shiong-nu” would be better than this ridiculous nonsense.)
  
  ★ “The physical type of the population is unknown as there are so far no human remains from the Neolithic period, but again, when we do uncover evidence for human physical types in the Bronze Age, they are largely Caucasoid rather than Mongoloid. Not quite a smoking gun perhaps, but the circumstantial evidence suggests that it was from the west or northwest that East Central Asia was first settled.” (p. 136)
  
  ★ “And do the different types of grave reflect different periods or something else? This is an important question since Yanbulaq reveals our earliest encounter between East and West in the territory of the mummies. Analysis of the physical type of 29 adult burials reveals that the majority (21) were of Mongoloid stock, similar to the Khams Tibetans (rather than the Han, the primary ethnic group of China), and only eight were Caucasoid (one skull had a blond braid still attached). Anthropological study has revealed that the burials in the type I graves are exclusively Mongoloid while those of type II and III show the presence of Caucasoid populations, specifically related to those found at Qäwrighul. If the distinctions are chronological (and only one type II grave is stratigraphically later than a type I burial) then we may be witnessing the movement of Caucasoid populations into a territory in which Mongoloid populations had already established themselves from the east. On the other hand, iron objects have been found in type I tombs and this would suggest that there may not be a great chronological distinction between the various types. In this case the distinctions in burials might be social or ethnic: Mongoloids burying their dead with many grave goods in larger chambers while Caucasoids adopted single-grave burial in less elaborate tombs.” (pp. 141–142)
  
  ★ “Cemetery IV [at Qäwrighul], dated to about 500–1 BC, provided 77 skulls for analysis which were of European type. Cemetery III, with a different mortuary tradition and material culture, dated to about AD 200 and revealed mixed Caucasoid traits consonant with its identification (by some) with the Xiongnu.” (p. 158)
  
  ★:“Suspicion that the physical anthropologist was not working with historically meaningful categories coupled with a general avoidance of anything that might smack of ‘racism’ since the Second World War resulted in a cleavage between archaeologists and those physical anthropologists who sought to identify sub-races of populations. This was considerably exacerbated by the attempts of anthropologists and geographers, the latter undergoing a phase of cartographical mania, to seek correlations between skull shape and just about anything else that might be measured or plotted on a map. For example, dolichocranics were shown to be more likely to divorce or commit suicide (not just in Sweden but even in France!), and various schools argued over the relative intelligence of the different physical subtypes. […] If it were not for the atrocities perpetrated by 20th-century racists, the history of research concerning the cranial index and the Indo-Europeans would be a subject of pure amusement.” (pp. 232–233)
  
  ★ “[…] it is hardly surprising that the cephalic index became an object of ridicule and Colin Renfrew could write: ‘Craniometry, the study and measurement of human skulls, has in recent years enjoyed about as much prestige in scientific circles as phrenology [i.e. the determination of a person’s character on the basis of his or her skull shape].’ Renfrew’s statement is probably an accurate description of the attitudes of many archaeologists although it might be emphasized that archaeologists are as much subject to their own ‘fashions’ as people in any other discipline and many archaeologists are woefully ignorant of the current state of physical anthropology. But the cleavage has also occurred among physical anthropologists themselves who, on studying a cemetery may provide information on the sex, age, stature, demography, nutrition and pathology of the population but have no interest in what they regard as the arcane and suspect attempt to extract historical information out of the 21 separate bones that constitute the human skull.” (pp. 233–234)
  
  WHAT IS EUROPE? WE JUST DON’T KNOW
  There are a couple of things that are just plain disappointing. Playing up the concept of the “mysterious” origin of the Tarim Basin mummies (we know where they were from—the Tarim goddamn basin!), for example. These mummies are, of course, from multiple different cultures existing in the region for some two millennia, and consequently the variety of culture therein represented is fascinating, although the book almost entirely ignores this in favour of making its case that these people were of “Caucasoid” (white) or “Europoid” (European) descent.
  
  Not only is the idea of “Europe” as a cogent region highly contestable, particularly the further back in history you go, the book doesn’t even use it consistently! Sometimes Central Asia is considered European, sometimes India, sometimes exclusively Western- and Central Europe. Increasingly obvious is the fact that, when the authors said “European,” they really meant “white.” The amount of times they reiterated that preserved bodies were “tall and blond” (pp. 7–9), had “light hair” and “light eye colour” (p. 24), were noted for their “white bodies” (p. 53), or were just straight-up “fair-haired and blue-eyed people” (p. 124) was exhausting.
  
  Mallory’s and Mair’s claim was, essentially, that “the Indo-Europeans” possessed “the characteristic long noses, red or blond hair, blue or greenish-hazel eyes [of white people]. These are our most recent depictions of the physical type that we find across the Tarim Basin from 2000 BC onwards and it is now time to look the mummies in the face” (p. 175).
  
  Automatically assuming that any group described as having “pale” or “light” skin absolutely must be more-or-less equivalent to the modern idea of “white people” is stupid for so many reasons I barely know where to begin. Although the Tarim Basin is falsely identified as located within the purview of “ancient China” (it’s in Xinjiang, which has not always been part of “China”!), it’s important to note that fair skin was considered desirable throughout the majority of Chinese history, because it signified less exposure to the sun, i.e., less physical labour. (Nor is this standard exclusive to China, ancient or modern.) I’m not saying it’s any more likely than lily-white Indo-Europeans, but I am saying that it’s silly to discount the possibility that ancient Chinese sources were merely noting that these mysterious western visitors were smokin’ hot. But I digress.
  
  WHERE IN THE WORLD IS XINJIANG?
  Further mistakes include but are not limited to trying to “have your cake and eat it too,” so to speak, in regards to the location of Xinjiang and the Tarim Basin (is it in “ancient China,” or are we speaking of populations from “the West”?), lambasting Early Mediaeval Studies for the whole “Aryan” thing while saying shit like “Caucasoid” and “Mongoloid,” and flip-flopping between being angry at actual Chinese experts for daring to want to research the artefacts and proudly positioning themselves as trailblazers for daring to want to research the artefacts:

  “What is so remarkable, however, is that apart from a few exceptions where Chinese scientists have undertaken admirably thorough examinations, there actually has been little analysis of these outstanding human relics. […] If one is going to accede to the demands for scientific investigation and public education, hence admitting that there are legitimate reasons for removing the mummies from their graves rather than re-interring them, then there is clearly a responsibility to provide the highest standards of conservation and analysis. We will turn to those few about which something more can be illustrated and said.” (p. 181)

  Yikes. And that’s even without the sneering condescension towards other countries, cultures, or demographics which would have the audacity to claim one of these mummies as their own:

  “The ‘Beauty of Krorän’ has become an icon of the Uyghur people who have claimed her (without any serious linguistic or cultural foundation but not without some genetic basis) as ‘the mother of our nation’ and her reconstructed face adorns national (Uyghur) posters.” (p. 182)

  It’s not a good look (even if you ignore the snide parenthetical) given that a good percentage of the book is spent trying to claim that these people were “Caucasoids.”
  
  LEAVE IT TO THE EXPERTS
  Oh, but wait! There’s more! How about this wholly unnecessary condescension in the chapter about textiles:

  “The Tarim and Turpan basins offer one of the largest collections of textiles in the ancient world. Their study has been primarily confined to Western scholars such as Vivi Sylwan who made detailed examinations of material uncovered in the earlier excavations of Sven Hedin, Folke Bergman and Aurel Stein. The more recent discoveries have seen enormous accumulations of new material in much better dated contexts and some useful descriptive work by Chinese specialists, but more detailed analysis has been limited to the work of Irene Good of the University of Pennsylvania and Elizabeth Barber of Occidental College, California, who were given partial access to some of the material (which provided a basis for Barber’s fine book on the Xinjiang mummies and their textiles). Chinese archaeologists have been somewhat loath to surrender their material to foreigners for analysis. From their viewpoint, the archaeological treasures of China have been pillaged quite enough by Westerners and no one wants to defer to ‘foreign experts’ to interpret one’s own heritage, especially when it concerns textiles, a field in which China has traditionally excelled. While this is understandable, it is frustrating to find the scientific reports which could place East Central Asia in the larger picture of the development of textiles in Eurasia so slow in coming. Textile production is nor a mere adjunct to the cultural arsenal of a people: the materials employed and the technology involved in its production can be used to trace the course of cultural influences, possibly even migrations, while the decorative patterns employed in textiles or the cut of the material has long been known to be one of the more sensitive expressions of a culture’s self-identity.” (p. 208)

  I quote verbatim. Like… yeah? Obviously Chinese academics and scientists would want to deal with their own research, artefacts, and history before anyone else could muck it up? How is this a bad thing, exactly?!
  
  TL;DR
  I found this book to be mostly unhelpful, which is a real shame because the majority of the other academic material regarding the Tarim Basin mummies is limited to research papers which, while enlightening, tend to be either inaccessible or expensive (and thus also ultimately inaccessible), particularly since this isn’t technically my actual area of study. Yet this book was riddled with both factual and ideological issues which detracted greatly from any value it might have had. It’s unfortunate that I can't think of any viable alternatives, because I certainly will not be recommending this one.
• 
  Karen

  As odd as this topic might seem, it is fascinating. For many years, explorers and archaeologists have uncovered ancient burials in Central Asia of people who look very Caucasoid, along with cultural artifacts which appear similar to Europeans', especially the Celts.
  
  These mummies were preserved not by treatment, but naturally by the very dry climate and, in some cases, very salty environment.
  
  Although this is a very controversial topic, since the Chinese government resists any implication that certain cultural milestones might be the result of outside influence, it seems clear that our ancestors were much more mobile than previously thought. Significant cultural exchange between East and West took place in Central Asia, and both groups benefitted.
  
  Highly recommended!
• 
  Mel

  I bought this book because I've always been vaguely interested in the Tarim mummies but have learnt nothing about them. Also because it was written by Victor Mair who is an excellent scholar. I've really enjoyed books by him in the past, and got to hear him talk at the Dunhuang conference I went to a couple years ago. The book is actually so much more than a book on the mummies. It's actually a history of East Central Asia. It looks at the different people and cultures that lived in the area, what ancient European and Chinese sources had to say about them, what archaeological expeditions from the early 20th century on have found, as well as an incredibly detailed history of the linguistics of the region, as well as indo-european languages in general (The other author being an expert in prehistoric archeology). While it claims to be a popular history it does go into a great deal of depth about archeology, linguistics and history. I feel like I know so much more about the region than when I started and that it will make a great reference book in the future. The chapters on the mummies themselves are interesting, they give details of the burials, the clothes, the grave goods and the different areas and time frames. The only criticism of the book I have is that they do this divided by theme, so you get all the stuff on the textiles together, rather than each individual burial. As there are so many different sites and burials it can be a bit confusing to remember who came from where and when so I found myself flipping back quite a bit. I think it would have been better to have gone into detail about each burial all together. But still otherwise it was great, and the burial with the screaming baby was very easy to remember! The book has lots and lots of great illustrations, black and white as well as lovely colour plates of the mummies. As well as illustrations of the mummies tattoos, maps and diagrams of the graves. It was a very interesting book. Definitely one I'd recommend.
• 
  Koen Crolla

  The mummies of the Tarim Basin are, of course, those associated with the manuscripts written in the so-called Tocharian languages (among many others), which famously caused a minor crisis in Indo-European studies last century by virtue of being centum languages found to the east of the satem languages. If you run in different circles, you may also know them for providing us with large amounts of beautifully preserved fabrics, including very old twills and tartans, which are always exciting and just as out of place as the languages.
  To Mallory and Mair, however, those are afterthoughts, and by far the most noteworthy thing about them is that they're ``Caucasoid'' rather than ``Mongoloid'' (terms they were happy to commit to print in the year of our Lord 2000), and therefore European, somehow, in China.
  
  In many ways The Tarim Mummies is exactly the book I expected it to be, but the authors' racism is a constant distracting undercurrent: the inhabitants of the basin are examined through the writings of contemporary cultures who knew about them (Greeks, Chinese), but when the Chinese note that they were known for their sense of rhythm, it's called ``a reversal of ethnic stereotyping'' and M&M actually type the words ``Kucha was the Harlem of the Tang dynasty''; the major language families of the surrounding regions are discussed, but their speakers are all bizarrely racialised and language is equated with culture and ethnicity in a way that would have been embarrassing in a book written a century earlier; when the mummies themselves are examined only the ``Caucasoid'' ones are discussed,† comparing them to the modern ``Homo Alpinus'' [sic!] populations of the Hindu Kush and Pamirs (oh, but they're just quoting—completely uncritically); the chapter on the tartans is openly hostile to the very idea of Chinese archaeologists examining the textiles themselves, stopping just short of calling them petty children who should get out of the way of the Western grownups; &c.
  The low point comes in chapter 7, Skulls, Genes and Knights with Long Swords, where the authors vaguely acknowledge the ``troubled history'' of craniometry before suggesting that the ``general avoidance of anything that might smack of ‘racism’'' has gone too far and just going ahead and gleefully printing a bunch of bullshit tables and graphs anyway, including one comparing the ``cephalic index'' of the Tocharians with those of ``Teutons'' and speakers of various centum and satem languages—that one ostensibly to criticise it, but waggling their eyebrows suggestively all the while. In a twist surprising no-one, they also managed to find a population geneticist eager to make all the same mistakes in a more fashionable medium, but fortunately he was prevented from carrying off most of his DNA samples by the Chinese government, so the chapter isn't as long as it might have been.
  I actually do blame Mair for all of this, because after that—for fifty or so pages, before a conclusion that tries to credit ``Europoids'' with transmitting the technology that kickstarted Chinese civilisation—the Tocharian languages become more prominent in the discussion, and Mallory's hand becomes much more apparent. The discussion remains shallow and limited to vocabulary, though, and it doesn't come close to salvaging the book as a whole.
  
  The author's bigoted preoccupations destroying 90% of what would otherwise have been an interesting book is a longstanding tradition in history in general and Indo-European studies in particular, obviously, but this is still a really surprising book to have been written in 2000. Some of it (like the Harlem comment) can surely be blamed on an immensely misguided attempt to make the book more palatable to the general public (from what I've seen of him at Language Log, Mair is absolutely that kind of person), but that doesn't excuse it or explain all the rest.
  Even if Mair (if it is just Mair) hadn't been the person he is, though, I still don't think The Tarim Mummies would have been a great book—the discussed history of the Tarim Basin spans three millennia and covers a large geographical area that's been subject to repeated and uneven massive demographic upheavals; it just doesn't make much sense to try to handle it in a single book at the level the authors try to.
  It's disappointing—Mallory wrote the only book I gave five stars this year (
  In Search of the Indo-Europeans, which, in retrospect, suffered from a lot of the same shallowness and sloppiness as The Tarim Mummies), and I had really been looking forward to this one.
  
  --------
  
  † The most disturbing aspect of that chapter actually isn't anything M&M say, but the fact that so many archaeologists seem to want to fuck the mummies, giving them names like ``Beauty of Krorän'', ``Lady of the Inscrutable Smile'', and ``Ravishing Redhead''. It's enough to make you want to be cremated.
• 
  Roxanne

  I started this book at the end of April and finished it in mid-October. Don't let that fool you, though: the only real problem with this book is that it's too large and heavy to take on the train, and so (for someone like me, anyway) the only time to read it is at bedtime, when I can only get through four pages max before conking out, which is the only reason why it took almost six months of fairly regular reading to finish it. In terms of the content and the writing style, this book is a gem.
  
  This book explores the Tarim mummies, the extraordinarily well preserved mummies found in central Asia, many of whom are of a Caucasian physical type, and tries to figure out who these people were and what they were doing in Asia. It's a really well-written, well-organized, and in-depth look at the history, prehistory, cultures, textiles, archaeology, anthropology, burial practices, and languages of the region. The writers come at the topic from every possible angle to try to gather more information that could help to understand the mummies' identities.
  
  For the most part, the book is understandable at the layman's level. Mallory and Mair explain each topic clearly. My only comprehension problem was related to the length of time it took me to read the book; by the time I got up the late chapter on languages, I was four months away from my reading of the chapter on the groups of people who occupied these areas in the historical record, so I had a little trouble keeping the Andronovo and Afanasevo straight and remembering the characteristics of the Kucheans vs. the Saka and whether some of them might have been the same people. But if you read this book like a normal person in a reasonable amount of time, you should be okay there, although a few big maps in an appendix would have been a welcome addition. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.
• 
  Horus

  I have been interested in this subject since I read Elizabeth Wayland Barber's "The Mummies of Urumchi". This is an excellent, well written analysis of the archeological and linguistic evidence regarding the caucasian mummies found in the Tarim basin, dating back to pre-Christian history. Due to the arid nature of the basin, the mummies are more perfectly preserved than Egyptian mummies, partially because the preservation was natural and accidental, rather than purposeful. Many look like they are sleeping and their clothing and hair are mostly intact, complete with colour. The text flows astonishingly well for an academic subject and the many illustrations are helpful and illuminating. One of the biggest issues brought to light by this book is the lack of funding, or apparent willingness on the part of the Chinese government to preserve more of the dig finds properly, before they are robbed further or disturbed by modern advancement and traffic. A fascinating read.
• 
  Sharon

  I’m optimistically creating a “mummies” shelf so I can find more books about mummies to put on it.
  
  First: this book is almost twenty years old. It doesn’t deal as sensitively with aspects of racial and cultural identity as I would like. That being said, it’s a fairly dispassionate book and pulls in a lot of sources from a variety of cultures (Chinese, Greek, Turkic, Iranian.) Their ultimate conclusions about the impact the prehistoric maybe-Tocharians had on their Chinese neighbors are fairly modest — they may have passed on chariot technology and they probably passed on wheat and sheep cultivation.
  
  I’d say the most exciting and unexpected part of this book, for me, was learning about the variety and reach of Iranian languages and the corresponding ethnic groups’ contacts across central and east Asia in the first millennia BC and AD. I’d heard of the Scythians but didn’t really know what they were up to outside the Greeks’ sphere.
• 
  Apostate

  "A book not worth rereading is not worth reading in the first place." - Anatoly Liberman
  
  
  Despite only getting three stars from me, this is one of my prized books. I go back to it about once a year & still learn more from it. I appreciate it more with each re-read. It would have been rated higher if the chapters weren't so uneven in quality. Some are so dense it was difficult to follow, but the book aims at being comprehensive, covering archaeology, forensics, art history, historical linguistics, ethnology, Old Chinese literary sources, climate change, etc.
• 
  Mary Mycio

  I bought this book when researching an article for Slate about the Kanjiashimenzi Petroglyphs in western China. It's a fascinating story about how Europoid people, probably on horseback, migrated from eastern Europe to what is now western China around 3500 BCE and left behind a trove of mummiesto to tell their story. It's good that the Chinese government has finally lifted ideological restrictions on their study. For a seemingly dry subject like archaeology, the book is witty and compelling.
• 
  Elentarri

  This lovely, illustrated book provides an extensive investigation of the Tarim mummies - who they were, their neighbours, the mummies, their languages, their life and culture etc. The book is scholarly, but well written and not boring at all. The book has a nice balance of enough detail but not too much irrelevant waffling. I especially liked the authors dry sense of humour.
• 
  Xarah

  A very good history of the Tarim mummies. While there were times this book did get bogged down with facts, it did provide good information.
• 
  Jan Pospíšil

  I wish there was more material (book itself says there are heaps of undocumented textiles etc.) in the appendices, but I still liked it a lot.
• 
  Julia Sant-mire

  beautiful!
• 
  Rolf

  Beautifully illustrated and well-researched, this is in many ways an excellent introduction to the archaeology of the Tarim Basin (aka eastern Central Asia, present-day East Turkestan or Xinjiang). Chapters 1-3 are particularly worth reading for those interested in ancient Central Asia and so-called Silk Road cultures. The book however is trying to do too much, and in a rather disjointed manner as different chapters are devoted to specific disciplines (archaeology, textile studies, linguistics, genetics, and even craniology) in order to solve, step-by-step, "the mystery" of the origin and identity of the Tarim mummies.
  
  Now the origin of the mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin is not a mystery at all: they are from the Tarim Basin. As they were not mummified on purpose by a specific culture (like for instance the Egyptian mummies were), but were preserved as a result of natural circumstances, the Tarim mummies represent several peoples and cultures in different regions of eastern Central Asia over a period of 2,500 years. But the authors are not really interested in these cultures. In their repeated description of the region as "in between" East and West, they seem to deny the Tarim a culture, or cultures, of its own. What they are primarily interested in, is the presumed ancestry of the mummies, and their professed aim is to prove that these ancestors were Europeans. Not only are they unaware of the fact that ‘Europe’ is a cultural construct that has no relevance whatsoever for premodern Eurasian history (in fact, when speaking of "Europe" they often mean Inner Asia's western steppe zone north of the Caspian and Black Sea), their efforts are rooted in some alarming notions of racial difference and ethnic purity. They distinguish sharply between the representatives of a "Caucasoid" (or "Europoid") and "Mongoloid" race among the mummies, even if the alleged representatives of these groups were found in the same cemetery. Needless to say that any human population on earth has ancestors from the outside, and that mobility and cultural exchange defines all cultures; and even Mair and Mallory have to admit that migrants entered the Tarim Basin from several directions, including the east. But that still tells us nothing about the identity of the mummies. Mair and Mallory, however, associate DNA with identity.
  
  DNA research may have been the flavor of the month in ancient migration studies over the past decades (and in itself is a respectable field), but what is disturbing, is that Mallory and Mair constantly link ‘race’ to culture and even language. As this book was published in 2000, its racialism is both terribly outdated (to say the least) and a foreshadowing of the return of racial thinking in our own time.
  
  Another problem, is that the authors repeatedly equate ancient and modern China, and thereby seem to endorse the claims of the current Chinese regime that Xinjiang has been part of China since time immemorial. The book’s title summarizes what is wrong with it. It both locates the Tarim Basin falsely in "Ancient China" and tendentiously identifies its earliest inhabitants as "peoples from the west".
• 
  Mary

  Chatty popular presentation of historic, archaeological, and linguistic evidence that might explain who the Tarim Mummies were. Although the introduction indicated that one of the author's interests was DNA analysis of the mummies, at the time this book was written they only had 1 DNA result. The argument can be a bit hard to follow, as there isn't(wasn't) enough data to do more than build a hypothetical model -- and, of course, the many many ethnic groups and languages are for the most part unknown to someone whose schooling focused on western Europe and the US. (It doesn't help that the Chinese, Indo-Iranian, and Greek names for people & places differ...) I found it particularly difficult to keep the forest in view while wading through the trees of the linguistic analysis.
• 
  Martha

  This is a fascinating account of the non-Chinese mummies found in the far west of China. This book allows a glimpse into the lives and appearance of the prehistoric peoples who settled the Tarim Basin some four millennia ago.