Skeleton of Western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb

Science News ^ | Friday, January 29th, 2010 | Bruce Bower

[SunkenCiv]

Heading East Excavations several years ago at an ancient cemetery in Mongolia uncovered a man's skeleton, including this skull, that has yielded genetic evidence of Indo-Europeans reaching eastern Asia at least 2,000 years ago.Kim, et al. Dead men can indeed tell tales, but they speak in a whispered double helix... DNA extracted from this man's bones pegs him as a descendant of Europeans or western Asians. Yet he still assumed a prominent position in ancient Mongolia's Xiongnu Empire, say geneticist Kyung-Yong Kim of Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, and his colleagues... the Xiongnu Empire -- which ruled a vast territory in and around Mongolia from 209 B.C. to A.D. 93 -- included ethnically and linguistically diverse nomadic tribes... Researchers have yet to pin down the language spoken by Xiongnu rulers and political elites, says archaeologist David Anthony of Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. But the new genetic evidence shows that the 2,000-year-old man "was multi-ethnic, like the Xiongnu polity itself," Anthony remarks.

[SunkenCiv]

[subtitle] DNA from 2,000-year-old skeleton may put Indo-Europeans in East Asia

Gold belt ornaments such as this one lay among items placed in the ancient tomb of a man in eastern Asia whose genetic makeup points to Indo-European ancestry. [Credit: Kim, et al.]

[GeronL]

very very early explorer?

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[blogOps]

Please add me to the ggg list. Thanks.

[rdl6989]

but they speak in a whispered double helix.

Maybe that's what's on the belt buckle in the photo.

[GeronL]

Do they estimate his origins? Does it lead them to Russia? Ukraine? Germany?

[Brugmansian]

2,000 years would make a Roman POW from the Battle of Carrhae (53 BC) a suspect. 10,000 were captured.
The Parthians moved them east to protect an area which was taken by the Han Chinese at the Battle of Sogdiana in 36 BC.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I saw the documentary where the research of these men was described(Korean documentary.) They said that the distribution of Caucasoid skeletons(in Xiongnu elite' tombs) are not confined to the Western part of Mongolia, as we are first inclined to suspect. Those skeletons were found in W. Mongolia and E. Mongolia, while mostly Mongoloid skeletons are found in mid-Mongolia.

They also claimed that skeletons of ruling elites of ancient Silla Kingdom in S.E. Korea, according to their investigation, has paternal Mongoloid and maternal Caucasoid(Scythian is what they referred to.) They went on to speculate that the Caucasian Eastern Xiongu elites may have genetically connected to Silla elites.

[wildbill]

He was on one of those trips where you go over to another country to find a foreign wife.

HAMILTON, ON, February 1, 2010–Researchers excavating an ancient Roman cemetery made a surprising discovery when they extracted ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from one of the skeletons buried at the site: the 2,000-year-old bones revealed a maternal East Asian ancestry.

Apparently there was widespread intercontinental dating in those days, centering on the city of Shangrila.

[PzLdr]

I read somewhere that Chinnghis Quan supposedly had reddish hair, and green eyes.

[ApplegateRanch]

That’s not a DNA helix on the buckle; it’s the Serpent of Eden, entwining itself around Eve.

He is one of Cain’s distant descendants.

And he went east...Land of Nod...and they were mighty in the earth....

Or not.

[smokingfrog]

Time traveler?
(I’ve been listening to Coast to Coast AM too much.)

[stefanbatory]

Time traveling werewolf...

[afraidfortherepublic]

You don’t have to test bones to posit ethnic mixes in Chinese history. Just look at some of the Xian warrior statues. Some of them bore Western faces when I saw the early excavations in 1983 — Turks? Indians?

[TigerLikesRooster]

There was large presence of Sogdians(a branch of Persian race from Central Asia,) in Tang China. So were many other Caucasian or Turkish people from Central Asia or Northern Asia. Some of them rose high in military ranks.

[colorado tanker]

Sogdiana was on the Silk Road and many merchants hailed from there.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

There is no question that ancient man (and ancient woman) roamed around a lot. Was it droughts? Wars? Who knows? Or just wondering if the hunting was better over the next hill?

[SunkenCiv]

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