Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

What Did the Real Yuezhi/Wusun/Tocharians Look Like?

Martin said, "If you take the Aryan=Nordic theories of the past out of the equation, as the DNA evidence suggests, then there is no reasonable expectation of Central Asian Iranian/Tocharian speakers being blue eyed or blond."

I don't think we can agree with that. Actually the DNA evidence proves otherwise, as do Roman and Chinese historical sources. We have tried to make light of this issue, but let's review known facts. First, we have the previously mentioned testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus that Alans were fair-haired. Were they genetically related in some fashion to the Yuezhi/Wusun and the Tocharians?

First, let's consider the Tocharians and the Tarim people living during the period we're studying-- the people who also introduced Buddhism to China. Here is a painting, un-retouched, of two Buddhists from Western China's Tarim Basin.

     
Perhaps I'm color blind, but I don't think so. The person to the right is obviously Chinese (as he should be) but the man to the left is a Tocharian with the same features (short beard and moustache) we've viewed on the Yuezhi/Kushans. I'll let you determine the color of his eyes and hair.

Now let's move on to the Wusun, the people most closely-related to the Yuezhi. Writing in the Hanshu (Chap. 96a), Yan Shigu says, "Among the various Rong in the Western Regions, the Wusun's shape was the strangest; and the present barbarians who have blue eyes and red hair, and are like a macaque, belong to the same race as the Wusun."

Now, we're extremely fortunate. A large portion of the Wusun moved down to the Pamirs, just a few hundred miles south of Kanju (already discussed in relation to the Yuezhi) in what is now called Tajikistan, and were recorded by the Chinese for a millennium thereafter. A distinctive portion of the Tajiks have non-Iranian features, but seem to be an extension DNA-wise of the Wusun. Here's a photo worth a million words:

   
Of these three young Tajik women, the central figure appears to have blue eyes. The two young women to each side of her have green eyes, and one is a red-head. They also have Northern European features. 

And here's another example, even more extreme-- a Tajik girl.
   

Far more interesting, let's take a look at the DNA analysis. The vast majority of "Aryan/Nordic" features (as Martin calls them) arrive in Haplogroup R1a1a, the so-called distinguishing Indo-European genetic strain. We can see its distribution across Asia and Europe by consulting this DNA map:

   
I find this quite amazing. The darkest areas ("hot-spots") show up in exactly the same "Indo-European" areas linguists and archaeologists have been projecting for an entire century. Look at India, exactly where we might expect the Indo-Aryan languages. For our purposes, we see a hotspot where nobody would expect one-- right there in the Altai, home of the Arimaspi, Tuvans, and Pazyryk Culture. From there, the Yuezhi/Wusun/Alan trail follows a "U"-shaped progression, down across Western China, to the BMC (Kangju), then up to the Aral (Yancai) area, so on and so forth.

It's hard to argue with ancient documentation, original tapestries, and the DNA trail. This all fits well in the origin of the Alans. I don't find these results extraordinary.

In any given population of Europoids, we would find blue/green/gray eyes as "sports." Most of what we know comes from Xinjiang Province, from the Takla Makan, into the Ili Valley and Ferghana, and then to Tajikistan just beyond the Chinese border. This was prime Saka/Yuezhi/Wusun territory.

A typical archaeological reference would be Sino-Platonic Paper No. 51, The Study of Ancient Human Skeletons from Xinjiang, China, by Han Kangxin. The study examines eight ancient cemeteries, perhaps the most relevant one being at Tudanmu on the upper reaches of the Ili River, the graves dating to 2,400-1800 B.P., and including seven male and six female Wusun skulls and two Saka ones (the latter's gender not specified). All male skulls were "Western Caucasoid." Han adds, "Two female skulls show obvious Mongoloid characteristics, perhaps a mixed type of the two races."

I'm far from being an Aryan racist. The most beautiful people on Earth are "admixtures."