[Jacob Kell]

"It is a suprising assertion about which I have been having a friendly argument with Blam. He believes the Chinese First Emperor was possibly Celtic and I disagree."

Isn't blam Celtic himself? I have said that the Tocharians were mediterranean or largely mediterranean in racial type, like maybe the Iranians. I got that from surfing the newsgroups at groups.google.com. I wouldn't be surprised; however, if even back then the area was one big melting pot where different ethnic strains intermingled. Including, among others Tocharians and Iranians. Who can say for certain?

[JimSEA]

I believe you are correct but Blam has me interested and I am finally getting Mallory & Mier's book on the Tarin Mummies. They seem to be pretty fair authorities and Mallory is the one who suggest the Medditerainian orign for the Tocharians if I am not mistaken.

I am interested in the Far East and Southeast Asia because we live there about 7-8 months out of the year (my wife is Thai though now a USA citizen and educated at Univ of Arizona). I am really very much a novice but many years ago, a friend was doing salvage work for the U of A along a proposed natural gas pipeline (near Oracle, AZ) and I was lucky enough to be able to help her on my days off -- that got me started).