Chinese History: The White Tribes of Ancient China

4,000 Year Old Lost Tribe
One of the most fantastic finds in the last half of the twentieth century has to be the discovery of a Northern European tribe found in the northeast corner of Xinjiang province, near the Celestial Mountains and the Taklimakan Desert on the edge of the Gobi desert.
The story starts in 1978 when the Chinese archaeologist, Wang Binghus, started searching for ancient sites. He began by following stream beds, and asking the locals if they had ever come across any broken pots and artifacts. He eventually came across a few people who pointed out that there was a place called Qizilchoqa, or, as the local people called it, Red hill. Here he made the most amazing discovery, the first of the mummies. It had been placed in a grave on the side of the hill.

It was a simple site, rush mats were on the floor, and some of the bodies were buried in the foetal position. In effect, the mummies were not what you would call real mummies, in the sense that they were not embalmed. They had been preserved in an amazing way. They had been placed in the ground, which had been subjected to a unique weather system. Heat, aridity, and bitter winter cold, mixed with a salty soil, had preserved them better than other mummies found around the world. Even the clothing was still perfectly recognizable.

The bodies were excavated and taken to the museum in the city of Urumqi. There were 113 bodies taken from the site. At the time the Chinese government did not have enough funds to excavate the find. Wang eventually discovered three more burial sites.
The faces of the mummies were very well preserved, so, on closer examination, they could see that they were not Chinese. They had blonde hair, big eyes, and European noses.
At that time, Chinese tradition had always shown the fact that they believed China had developed independently from the rest of the world. Because of this, the government was reluctant to bring the finds to the public attention.
But soon they realized that the proof was irrefutable.


The most extraordinary thing about the mummies was the fact that their clothes were in such good condition. A jacket belonging to one man, over three thousand years old, still had a crimson edge. And the women had artificial extensions in their hair.
This tribe was obviously very advanced for its day. On one of the mummies, there is a scar which shows they had rudimentary operating skills. It had been sown up with horses hair.

When the West was eventually allowed to visit the mummies, Dr. Victor Mair, who was a Professor of Chinese at Pennsylvania University, took a tour around the museum. Imagine his surprise when he saw these amazing mummies, which had been kept in a dark room, in glass-topped boxes.
At this time, the Chinese authorities were still a bit reluctant to let anybody know about them, so it has taken quite a long time for the West to be able to study them properly.
Eventually in 1993, they were allowed back with a team of geneticists from Italy. And this is when they began to study them properly. They used the most up to date technology of the time to confirm the date of the mummies. They now believe that they are about 4,000 years old, and the youngest about 2,000. There are probably many more to be found, possibly in the same region of China, but it is also possible they could have settled anywhere in China, as long as the conditions were suitable to live in.


These people were from the Bronze age, they were Caucasian, and it is possible that they interacted with the indigenous people at that time. The local people probably taught them their traditions, and the Caucasians most likely introduced them to their way of life as well.
There were two cartwheels found at the burial sites, very similar to what you might find in Russia, or nearby countries. These amazing people were probably Scandinavian or German; it is amazing to think that they trekked across China all the way from Europe, 4,000 years ago, taking their traditions and language with them. How many other tribes were there? Who knows?

I think that one of the most fascinating things about this story is that the local people, even today, that live in the area where the bodies were found speak a language called Tocharian, the most eastern branch of Indo-European.
This language is closely related to German and Celtic. I think the other most amazing thing about these people is that they walked all the way across China, taking with them their families, and a mixture of animals, probably goats and sheep.
Feeling the cold, and the heat, catching diseases that they didn't know anything about, unsure whether they would survive the different climate. Babies were born, people died, and all the time not knowing whether they would be safe or if the indigenous people would accept them.
Their lust for adventure and discovering new places gave them strength and determination to survive. They were amazing people, and I hope that soon we will be able to see these wonderful discoveries and learn more about these courageous human beings that came from the beginning of history.

Questions & Answers
© 2009 Nell Rose
Comments
Fascinating article. History fascinates me. Please write more items. Thanks.
Hi Nell, i would urge you to read the book i am currently reading which has put many "attractions" of my life into focus... the history of the red haired, green/blue eyed folk known as Dragon/Grail/Fairy/Elven bloods, direct descendents from the Annunaki (children of god/shining ones) and is labelled as the official history of their race by Nicholas De Vere titled "The Dragon Legacy" or "From Transylvania to Twickenham". it makes clear why these red haired folk are found all over the world in ancient times as they were wise and "connected" rulers and had many client races around the world who engaged their services. They formed a caste system with the wisest of Druidhe class as advisors to the Temporal or Grail King class and then Swan Warriors who protected the Swan/Grail Maidens who were the actual repository for the wisdom of the druids and kings... the method i will leave you to discover, but it has brought together so much since i was a child and noticed how fairy tales seemed ubiquitous so must have basis in reality... here is a link, but i advise buying the book as it is serious study rather than a read, so not best done online... I think it will supply much that you wonder about. Here is link : https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/dragons/esp_soc... Enjoy! (if you so choose)
Very interesting article. Love history and since getting my DNA tested am even more so. Thank you so much for this article.
They are ancestors of the Turks.
Tribal jews have always lived among Chinese, Burma and India without too much conflict. China spoke of them as those with the brown hair. Some would think this meant white people but it could very well be lost tribes.
Hi Nell, missed you much and glad to be back.
THERE IS SO MANY FABRICATIONS
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1. The mummies are in a country called " EAST TURKISTAN" the people who live there are Uyghurs (related with Tocharians) which is 600 miles away from the heart of Chinese civilization. The Chinese communist incorporated it in 1949 just like Tibet.
2. The genetic Tocharian are most similar to Iranians not Europeans.
3. If these White tribes were so advanced how come they were ruled and controlled by Chinese people for 500 years? Chinese was the richest nation, and had many rich invention. Hangzhou: The Finest and Most Noble City in the World According to Marco Polo.
Everyone is much more connected than we think we are. The first thing people say when I tell them my mom is Japanese is "oh, she must not be 100% because you don't have slanted eyes." Well, guess what? She is 100% and I am half. We can look many different ways, and we are not always so different.
Oh, this is interesting, indeed, Nell. I do think I saw a program about this on the History Channel a few years back, if memory serves. It just goes to show the "us/them" attitude is rather wrong-minded....
Voted up, interesting and shared.
You People need to understand about the indo-europeans to understand who the red headed people of northern china where
Very interesting information.
This is incredible news that we keep me busy for some time now. I am more familure with Menashe culture which was original dispora out of Egypt thru Persia but as far as the mountain regions of China.
I have heard about this somewhere before but you have really covered the subject really well and I have voted Up and tagged as Awesome. I am also sharing on my Facebook wall.
Caucasian as a name shuld not be politicaly correct.
I Dont like the american way of forging the history. Americ is aroudn 230 years old. where everyone that "looks" european is called caucasian . Cos its build on a missbelife that the white race is from "caucasus" today's south Russia. Which is false. White race shuld be called Indo-European , its better clarification. Cos even how you make it ....The first civilzation outside africa was India, that is a fact. And the mongol race, and white race is all made out of Indian people. However the white race was developed in north india , which is today's Iran and Pakistan, afganistan (afgans is called Scandinavian race) even in US. Not caucasian.
Hi Nell. Great article and amazing photos. Voted up and shared.
A long time ago, I met a physician from Kazakhstan. His facial features were halfway between Caucasian and Chinese. That squares with photos I've seen from other Central Asian republics.
There was one surprise from a few years ago. I've also looked at photos of Sami people, also known as Laplanders. (They live in the Northern parts of Sweden, Norway and Finland.) As expected, most look like Europeans.
However I remember one photo of a nomadic Sami family from the early 20th Century. Their features were very Asian. Human prehistory is probably more complex than we think it is.
This is fascinating -- I'd seen something about this on TV. It shows that people back then used to travel around a lot -- probably more than we realize. Voting this Up and Interesting.
Nell,
check out the Red Deer Cave People too. They're a non human hominid species discovered in China recently. Maybe you can find out what kind of remains were found because I sure haven't been able to so far. (I'm kind of lazy sometimes.) The only Solutrian remains were a finger bone and a tooth, so I'm hoping this find is more extensive. (Hard to imagine one less extensive!) I still don't believe Solutrians were any different than Neanderthals, but who knows?
The Red Deer find seems at least as cool as the mini homo erectus bones found in that cave in Flores Indonesia. The dorks who "discovered" the site (they were led to it by locals) stupidly called the little guys Hobbits. I'm sure you've heard of them. I used to live in Indonesia and they have folk tales of "Tuyul"- small people who like to steal small objects and food like pack rats and those birds I cant remember the name of due to incipient senility. I think they still exist in Flores and probably Java and other islands too. Wouldn't it be cool if somebody found them? Of course, it would be cool if somebody proved Sasquatches exist and that hasn't happened either.
Later!
P.S.,
I forget to mention that both films about the Solutrians are available for free online. Just search for them by name and they pop right up. I wish somebody would make a film about the Andaman Islanders, but the ones who live primitively (the Islands are territories of India and ethnic Indians live on at least one of them in very limited numbers,) don't want outsiders coming around. Until recently shipwrecked sailors were routinely murdered and the only film of an Islander I've seen was of a man throwing a spear at a helicopter that came by to see if they were O.K. after the same tsunami that devastated Aceh in Indonesia awhile back hit the Andamans. I guess they didn't need any help!
Nell,
I read the article Ron linked to and thought you might be interested in the following info because that story contained a lot of factual errors.
The "Negroid type (Blacks)" he referred to still exist. The Negrito race (it's a separate race and despite the name "little Negro" they aren't Negroes) is extant in parts of Southeast Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines and some other islands, though except for in the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean most of them are now racially mixed. Many of the Andaman islanders are so isolated and primitive they still live in their own stone age and don't even know how to start fires. In fact, they are the most isolated population on the planet. Their population group (race) is as old as the Australian Aborigines-who are Caucasians-and the Bushmen, who are also a separate race. These three races are the oldest on the planet but not even population geneticists can tell which one is the oldest-much to the chagrin of racists and racial bigots the world over.
Another blow to racists and racial bigots? Mongoloids, American Indians and Negroes are all descended from Caucasians, though the original population couldn't have possibly been of the Nordic type that most people erroneously attribute to all "White" people. (Very light skin and an unparalleled diversity of hair and eye colors.) Worse yet to the bigots is that Negroes are the youngest race on the planet. This only matters to a bigot of course, but it never fails to amaze me what can be important to some bigots.
There are Indian artifacts and remains in the Americas older than any proved to be Negrito, and the artifacts at a habitation site of European hunters found in the Carolinas is the oldest yet. However, that doesn't prove either group was there before the other, much less before the Negritos. If the Negritos did make it to the New World, they were likely the first people to do so, because the Indians were the only people living there when Europeans rediscovered it (though some Eastern tribes showed signs of racial mixing with Caucasians.) That would mean the Indians had supplanted the Negritos. The Kenniwick remains found in Washington state could easily have been those of a Negrito but thanks to political correctness we may never know. The state stupidly turned them over for interment to a local Indian tribe that claimed a fictitious ancestral link.
I hope you find this information useful. Due to political correctness it's not well known, but it is fascinating. You can find plenty of info and photos about the Andaman Islanders with a web search. The Discovery Channel (if I remember correctly) made a documentary about the Europeans who apparently traveled to America 17500 years ago called "Solutrians: The First Americans" that was very good. There was even a movie called "Ice Age Columbus." (I saw that one on Discovery for sure.) It was pretty good, though as usual the stone age humans were portrayed as being barely able to survive in a hostile environment-something that flies in the face of all known facts. The savage and deadly mega-fauna of North America went extinct shortly after the arrival of Indian hunters and the cave bears and lions of Europe didn't last long after Homo Sapiens arrived. I agree with the theory that man was the apex hunter of the last Ice-Age.
Cheers!
Great article Nell! I found it by chance and enjoyed it very much.
There is no archeological evidence that anybody lived in the Red Hill area but Tocharians 4000 years ago--"Indigenous" or not. From what I remember they are among the anscestors of Scythians and some other steppe horsemen societies.
Unfortunately, The "People's Republic" of China (Est. 1949) propagates a fictional history of a culture "5300" years old established by the mythical Han Chinese--who are claimed to be a race as well as a nationality. Most Chinese swallow this myth without even bothering to chew. This myth is also accepted by most Westerners who should know better but don't--for way too many reasons to go into here. Racial myths are common in totalitarian countries and China is no exception. (The muslim myth that the Near East is populated by Arabs is a similar example-also shared by most Westerners.) As you noted, the Chinese government originally supressed the existence of the Tocharians. It also claims the Tibetans are Han Chinese and that the Caucasian peoples in Western China are all outsiders. In fact, Chinese government apparatchiks claim that all the land encompassed by its borders-and then some-are traditional Han Chinese land.
Apparently the jingoistic Miss Wu doesn't know the history of the Mandarins and their contributions to modern Chinese society--including its national language. The notion that China is a continuation of all the local cultures and so called Dynasties that came before it is preposterous. The notion that those cultures developed independantly and were all composed of a single race of pure blooded Han is perfectly ridiculous.
I don't Think chinese han were mixed with any other races.
Chinese Great Han come from Yellow river. we creat our own history and culture. totally different from Whites.
Just some travleers not meaning anything. I imgrate to America is that means i bulid USA??? LOL, Chinese history start 5300 years ago, not in the place where mummie found out.
I never knew about this tribe: amazing! On a similar vein, I have been hearing some of the ancient egyptian pharoahs have european features as well.
Ancient people obviously traveled around a lot more than some would have you believe. Very interesting.
I am fascinated with all this. I love the culture and history so much and you wrote it out wonderfully! It was an excellent read.
Amazing story and pics. I haven't heard of this before and it is great to learn of a new archaeological discovery. There are still so many hidden secrets from ancient civilisations- truly fascinating- voted up and awesome!
I have seen a couple of documentaries about these mysterious Chinese mummies and it is all very fascinating. Who knows what is still concealed beneath the earth, that will totally change our perceptions of history?
Hi Nell Rose, I have seen through your hubs and I really like it. The mysterous story about chinese is very cool hub. Chinese has a long history in Asia and there are many very intelligent ppl in the history those who influence other race or countries. Chinese mytery make your hub more intereting.
I wonder why racial bigotry exist when the migration of ancient people that Archaeology is unearthing prove that interbreeding of our ancestors make us one family...Humans
I only recently came across your historical hubs.they are providing me with many moments of delightful reading.Thank you.
Yet again, you impressed me with such great hub!Full of knowledge and very interesting information. China is such a big country whose culture is very rich as well. I'm pretty sure there are a lot more interesting stories that lie beneath the soils of the land.
Celtic is closer. They spoke Gaelic. Purest Gaelic on Earth is from the Isle of Man. One thing your article did not mention is the fact that Plaid was prevealent. Highlanders? The Ark of the covenant, by the by, is in Jerusalem. Surprised? Evidence is in front of us.
Absolutely fascinating. I have visited China and I cannot imagine all of this. You tell the story well - how courageous they must have been. And sewing with horse hair - how did they know. Thank you so much!
wonderful pictures
wonderful hub....very informative nbeautifully presented....thank u Nell....
i remember when i first time watch the video as the archaeogists carefully open the grave. to my extramly surprise, a beautiful white woman lays inside. even after 4000 years, she still so beautiful. at the moment i did acctrully feel the touch through my heart. oh man, if i was there 4000 years ago, i would marry her.
i am not kidding, it was acctrully the major reason that motived me to study in europ and america. and for all these wonderful time i have lived, it all started with the beautiful caucasian woman.
according to some of surviving chinese history record, there were always people that can be related to caucasian in northern china. aside of dna related, several artifacts had been found in china which was indetinfied to be made during Zhou dynasty.those artifact have a very strong reflect of the caucasian culture. this can still be tracked today. especially through some surviving ancient metal work. for example, compare surviving swords dated before Qin dynasty to the blade work of caucasus mountian region, its not hard to find lot of similarity.
i am a chinese, and i have decent traveling experience in or out of china. for my own understanding, chinese or Han chinese are not an ethnic group. its more like different ethnic people lived, mixed,and most important shared same culture together. today most of the chinese had lost their ancesteral apperence due to mixed marrage, but their accent still remains. even though the accent is not a very reliable way to indentify someone's ancesteral background. but it still leave us some tracks to study. oh god, the different accents in china are something that really gets on my nerves. there are several times that i went across the street to buy a cook, and i could't understand what the hack they were talking about.
btw, here are some of my own experience that might help you in your research:
during the time i was working in shandong, i had noticed the shape of local people's skull are pretty much similar to the typical hindo-europeans. my father, who was orginally from shandong, had this type of skull shape with deep eye scoket. however, i whose mother side had 1/2 manchurian triant, did not succeed most of my father's skull appearance.
anyway, i consider myself Han chinese. My wife is an american, she is mixed with italian, french, german and romanian blood. i do not know what our marrage will affect the human history 3000 years later. but i am pretty sure we can make some handsome children.
very intresting. and if you do a dna test you may find a large portion of the northern chinese genetic pool white.
a lot of people lived in region of yi-meng mountain in ShanDong china appear to have bigger and taller bone structure, deeper eyes. there was a research not too long ago, and found these people related to the people lives in mordern day chechen.
This is astounding! I had no idea about this story. Thank you very much for the education. Who knew!?
Hi Nell
thank you for diggin' out this story. I have heard it long time ago and seen only one b&w pic of one mummy from the newspaper article. Where did you find these pix?
Be on the lookout for the articles on these ancient peoples on my hub. These are the same people who established the famous "Silk Road" from China to Europe.
Another quirky fact is that we can find descendants of these tribes even in Japan-tall white people who still speak (modified) ancient language different than the surrounding tongues.
Thanks again
Keep it coming
cheers
Mikka
one of my favorite hubs of all time from one of my favorite hubbers of all time.
Those pictures remind me of the epigramman when he is at work doing the graveyard shift at 3 in the morning!!!
Nell, what a great Hub! Thanks for working on this extremely interesting bit of not-well-known history! It certainly is news to me.
It's so interesting when we think we have all figured out and then out of the blue discoveries are made that are the total opposite from our assumpions. (For example, we've been taught that the first Americans were the Amerinds whose ancestors migrated into North America over the Bering landbridge, but then discoveries in Brazil were made beginning in the early 1970's indicating that the first Americans were black: http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-First-Inhabitan...
I recall having seen a short documentary about these early Caucasians in China. Fascinating times we live in!
This is another good story, informative and educational as well. Again, very good work. Thank you.
Thanks Nell, your comments have been very fair. I appreciate that.
I think the confusion comes today because of the definition of race, that was created in 1700's. There was no white race and chinese race until we created this definition. These are learned concepts that form the beginning of so much hate. I write up a little history of race on my blog www.racialize.com.
When I began to unlearn the concept of race, I began to see so many lies that surround us daily, and it makes me so frustrated. We cling on to these fake concepts of race. Usually the only reason to cling on to these created concepts, is to justify using, pillaging and killing the "other" race.
What we need to learn, is what our forefathers were never taught. That there is no white race. There is no chinese race. Yes there was discrimination too, but more in terms of which tribe do you belong to, as you also mention about tribes.
Let's examine race, who is white? Are you? What if you are Italian, some might say you are some might say you are not. What if you are mixed 1/4 Indonesian as many Dutch might be today, are you still white? What if you are Mexican and can trace most of your ancestors as being Spanish, but mixture of other things as well. The definition many times depends on who is asking, which culture they are from, what the current definition is today. This is completely subjective.
The same applies to being chinese. Here are some photos of the different ethnicities or races of China
www.flickr.com/photos/teanitiki/sets/72157623403515817
All these people are from China, and are Chinese, but are the ones that are Muslim are they also Chinese? Yes, they likely have arabic race and culture, but they are still Chinese, are the ones up north who may speak russian or polish, are they Chinese? Yes they also are. One Caucasian I met, who could speak more than 20 languages, I asked him what he was, and he said he was Chinese. I was shocked and thought he was playing me. He made a joke that I was racist. He was indeed born in China. He is Chinese.
I like this article, as I think the concept of race is quite simply ridiculous. Yes you can find genetic similarities between isolated groups of people that inbreed. However the categories that people use in everyday conversation such as white race or aryan race, are mostly imprecise and unscientific.
To cleanclover, you have quite simply been brought up to be racist because of your grandfather. Please don't spread such lies about Chinese people. Also, read up about how the Tata's from India helped to start the opium war, which led to the taiping rebellion where 30 million chinese died, all because of the greed of opium dealers.
No wonder people in China have such mistrust of other nationalities.
While there may be a coverup of such evidence, there has also been a cover up about asian races in North America and other parts of the world, likely Europe too.
So who created who? Who is the original race, who cares!? One could postulate any variety of theories, for what purpose? To prove what exactly? That you think Chinese should be your slaves, and are naturally untrustworthy?
I mean come on, get your minds out of the toilets.
Very cool article Nell, I never heard of these adventurers, really exciting. I did here of a legend of ancient red-haired people that moved to India, have you ever heard of them? Anyway, well written piece!
Ben
hi there, I am Taiwanese, whose blood is partially Chinese (unlike what China claims about us). My first big racial shock came when a Turkish friend showed me pics of his dad and uncle when they were young. They looked identical and identical to my grandpa when he was young.
And then I remembered my dad said that my grandpa's eyes are yellow (what you would describe as amber) and his nose rises sharply like a Caucasian btwn the eyes. But my grandpa and his family have been living in Taiwan for at least 200 years..
And reading the Chinese texts from 3000 yrs ago (a requirement in school) and the Chinese tales of their origin. They describe almost all of their hero ancestors as with yellow hair, red curly beard, big long ears, and very tall (6 ft to 6'6" based on the length unit at the time). Isn't that a perfect match to these mummies? A Chinese even wrote a book a few yrs ago about how he thinks all these Chinese nationalist stories about Chinese being black hair, black eyes were all lies.
It really makes me think that maybe there is no such original race called the "Han" Chiense, but just a mix btwn many different ones in the Far East and, sometimes, a recessive gene in DNA shows up like in my grandpa's case.
I think this is very interesting. These kinds of things have and probably will be oppressed for a very long time. I wouldn't say that the whites enslaved the people of china, but this could be a reason for the Asian racial divide.
It would only make since that the euro settlers would have had contact for trade and the seeking of knowledge. The Germanic in those days generally didn't breed with slaves unless there was a long term relationship of the people. This also could be an indication (assuming that they bred into the mongol race) that there was a peaceable ideology, or a long term relationship with the local Asians. It is theorized this very thing happened in Egypt and many other parts of the world. Possibly even in northern America far beyond the time of these people. These types of finds will help bring lost history, original hybrids, and lost technology to the attention of the biased modern world. Lots of cooperation and organization could redeem some of this but its unlikely as history erodes faster than we can discover it.
Thanks for bringing this excellent information to public attention. GREAT INFORMATION.
The first time I saw the picture above, it little scared me. But this is real. You have great information that I never knew before.
Every time we think we know something, we find out more! The earth's surface is volatile, how much is lost and buried, melted away, how much is barely under that will be brought up? This is very interesting, I hadn't ever heard about them at all before.
I just made a tribe hub.
This is really amazing. Thanks for this wonderful hub.
Remember hearing about this a while ago; thanks for the hub I love all this histiry stuff and I think the more we discover the more we realise our interconnectedness...I love the idea that everyone from Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australasia is related to a couple of hundred people who walked out of Africa via the Arabian peninsular...!
I feel the chinese are very intelligent and hard working. I have seen them and they are really loyal to their nation and language so are the japanese. I have respect for them. They are so well developed in science that the rest of the world actually don't know the real china. America is very open culture so we have access to the real knowledge and research also the language is common so it helps. Chinese language is the toughest in the world and they tend to be secretive. They are masters of deception. You see at the Beijing olympics i thought USA would get most gold medals but China beat USA handsomely. Non-Chinese need to be careful of these Chinese.
I feel china and India are going to be 1 and 2 economies by 2020 and that's no exaggeration. Again America will have no answer to China.
It dates back to 4,000 years doesn't it? They are among the oldest of all civilization. Always Secretive and i doubt they shared real knowledge or information with the Caucasians. Chinese are fierce competitors and they won't help a non-Chinese no matter if they are allied to them, that's what i feel.
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