Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

The Birth of Central Asian Trade: Khotan Jade & Bactrian Turquoise.

Good work, Michael

(I just gave you a rating, which can only show up as "Neutral." But it looks to me like your actual positive rating would be 28, not 23. What a glitchy system!)

Thanks for mentioning the findings of Ilyasov. The tail sheath is certainly indicative of the Yuezhi/Alans as it arrives in every location-- from Pazyryk to Bactria and then the Crimea. As you mentioned, this horse dressing indicates the Pazyryk culture probably was the Yuezhi, if we add all the other cultural links between them and the Qin and Han Chinese, including the tattoos, the Quiling "monster," the S-shaped cheek-pieces, and the crenellated mane.

As a primary Central Asian trading society, the Pazyryk-Berel horsemen appear to have controlled the eastern end of northern trade route from an early period. Frankly, it looks like the route can be linked to Arzhan 1. In both Arzhan kurgans (1 &2), artifacts point to a "multiple of cultures." With the premise of "admixture," I've just studied 3 scholarly papers on Europoid-Asiatic admixtures of the Altai and Xinjiang Province. All 3 papers are valuable, yet flawed.

In 2013, Tan JingZe et al published, Craniometrical Evidence for Population Admixture in Bronze Age Southwest Xinjiang, very recent and extremely "Beijing biased." Xinjiang Province has a high non-Chinese ethnic population, and I'll bet a huge percentage would rather live under an authority beyond the Communist status quo. In this view, Tan JingZe's study is designed to "prove" the Chinese were overpoweringly the dominant cultural group in Bronze and Iron Age Xinjiang. I think Mallory, Mair, Kangxin, or Yu, could successfully debunk this premise in a heartbeat.

   
The Tarim basin is in the heart of Xinjiang. According to historical tradition, the southern "Silk Road" ran through Niya (where the famous bow and quiver were found), westward to Khotan (jade country), then to Bactria (and it's turquoise), and finally down to India. Supposedly, the "Silk Road" was initiated by the Chinese in the 2nd century BC. As they say in Mazatlan, "I don' thin' so."   I think "someone else" founded it.

Let's take a closer look at Khotan. Our team of JingZe and associates studied 52 tombs, C14-dated to 950-850 BC, at Liushui Village, Keriya County, much later part of the Khotanese Kingdom. What interests us is Khotan's production of nephrite jade, which appears to be the earliest recorded trade item of the Yuezhi. This is prime jade country, the stone a pure white. For east-west cranial references, the study used skulls from Anyang (Eastern Asian) and the Volga Pit Tombs (called "Western Asian," no references to "Caucasoid" or "European.") How odd!-- the references (from Anyang and the Volga) were Bronze Age, but Liushui cemetery was Iron Age, making the title of the study an anachronism. A total of 16 skulls were used, and here is the total count and variance of the craniology:

Western Asian Type (let's face it-- Europoid or Caucasian) 9 positive identifications.
Eastern Asian Type (and JingZe really means "Han Chinese") 3 positive identifications.
Eastern & Western Asian Type (I do believe the real word is "Admixtured") 4 positive identifications.

According to the above results, JingZe and associates claimed the Liushui Village cemetery contained "predominantly Eastern Asian crania," proving the Chinese inhabited the entire province of Xinjiang as far back as the Bronze Age. Even if you're Sino-centric liberal and add the admixtured skulls to the Asiatic ones, you get 7 Chinese-type people discovered at Liushui, and you get 9 Western-foreigners, the "others," in the same cemetery. Once again, we find scholars who can't count.   

But we can salvage some great stuff from this bogus "study." First we have, "The styles of pottery in Khotan were very similar to the Chust Culture found in Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan [next to Bactria]. However, geometric carving patterns on the Khotan pottery were most similar to those in Tibet and Qiunghai [still no Han Chinese at this time]. A single-handled gallipot found in Khotan can find an almost exact copy in the Qosgong graveyard, Lhasa, Tibet." To me, the report shows these jade gatherers were probably Tibetans. But who were they working for?

Here's more than a clue, "There were also bronze wares excavated from Khotan. Those bronze wares had the same styles with those from Charwighul and Yanbulaq. [imports from Western Zhou?] The bronze and gold bell-shaped eardrops [earrings] from Khotan were most similar to those of the early Scythians from Siberia. Bronze harnesses and arrows with tail-hooks were most similar to those of Arzan in Siberia."

   
After reading this report, I dug through my artifacts and found this-- a bronze Arzhan-styled arrowhead with a tail-hook. How and why did it arrive in circa 900 BC Khotan?

   
Here's more! Take a look at this earring found at Arzhan. It's bell-shaped, just like the Khotan ones, and has Bactrian tourqoise pendants. How wickedly odd!

   
Here we see a variety of horse gear from Arzhan 1, dated to roughly 800 BC. This was the very beginning of mounted warfare and trade, the great step beyond chariots. The Arzhan bronze bits are toggled, the earliest defined "snaffle bits." Snaffles worked so well they remained unchanged for almost 3,000 years and are still used today. At Khotan, we're looking at the earliest archaeological remains of a steppe trade route, established by horsemen almost a millennium before the Han Chinese "Silk Road." But who initiated the route?

   
The route itself-- and the trade in Bactrian turquoise and Khotan jade-- was obviously initiated by Arzhan horsemen, perhaps the earliest sign of the Arimaspi, the Horse Lovers, who evidently existed as a culture more than two centuries before the Western Scythians arrived on the Pontic steppe. The "Arzhans" were the same culture that moved down to the Altai, first at Pazyryk, then south to Ukok and Berel. Here in this photo, we have a Siberian-styled horseman, his mount decorated with Arzhan fittings, as he wears a multitude of gold appliques on his kaftan-- exactly like the "king" discovered at Arzhan 2. We are looking at an early Central Asian trader from Arzhan, Siberia. The Chinese knew him, or his great-grandson, as a "Yuezhi."