China: 'Cherchen Man', a tall, red-haired Tocharian mummy from Cherchen (Qiemo) in Xinjiang, c. 1000 BCE.

China: 'Cherchen Man', a tall, red-haired Tocharian mummy from Cherchen (Qiemo) in Xinjiang, c. 1000 BCE.

The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to 200 CE. Some of the mummies are thought to be associated with the presence of the Indo-European Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin, although the evidence is not totally conclusive. Working with DNA samples, Victor H. Mair has concluded that the mummies are Caucasoid, likely speakers of an Indo-European language; that East Asian peoples began settling in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin about 3,000 years ago. while the Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, largely based in modern day Mongolia, around the year 842.

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