I was really bored today so I made this map, with the intent of quickly educating beginners on origins of various thnic groups around China.

I spent hours on it, anyway please help me to find if there are mistakes.




Click on the top bar to get the enlarged view.

So you made it yourself?
I guess there will soon be people arguing that Vietnamese (or Tai) being closer to (Han) Chinese than Austronesian (esp. Malays)~...

edit: South of Yangtsz river might well be populated by "Viets" before Chinese conquered it.

Hi Qrasy,

Don't be so critical on Ming-Loyalist.

One thing though: You have put down Turks as Mongoloids? The Turks may be a lot of things, but I don't think that they were Mongoloids. Later on, some Turks mixed with Mongoloid people, and formed part Mongoloid people like Kazaks. But pure Turks (e.g. Turkomens) are absolutely NOT Mongoloids.

The many ethnic groups listed on this forum are all very interesting.

However, I like to explore two ethnic groups:

1. Turks - ethnic Turks, including Turkic tribes like Uighur, Kazak, etc.

2. Iranians - ethnic Iranians, including Iranian tribes like Persian, Tajik etc.

Starting with Turks: The Turks probably originated West of the Ural mountains and spreaded east over northern Central Asia - reaching Mongolia thousand of years ago. Later, some of the Turks moved south into Southern Central Asia, where they came into conflict with the Iranian people already living there.

Iranians: The Iranians probably originated in the Caucasus. They moved east and south through southern Central Asia. They left the Caucasus probably around the same time as the Aryan tribes who were their relatives. The Aryan tribes moved further into the Indian subcontinents around 3,500 years ago. The Iranian tribes were content to stay in Southern Cental Asia; however aound 1,500 years ago, one of the large Iranian tribes, the Jats, moved into the Northwest part of the Indian subcontinent where there was better farm land. The Jats are probably the largest ethnic group both in Pakistan and in northwest India to-day.

I am NOT an experts on Turks or the Iranians - but I am willing to learn.

I will argue that vietnamese are southern mongoloid because they don't look like the austronesian or mon-khmer people.

Tai people are also not southern mongoloid.

Vietnamese are closer to the tai people.

I would place tai, vietnamese and han under east mongoloid.

Korean should be under north mongoloid as they are similar to tungusic people. Most koreans (without cosmetic surgery) have single eyelids and small eyes.

You miss out another group which are the khmer people who dominated the indochina mainland before the tai and vietnamese moved south. Khmer people should belong to southern mongoloid, the same group as the austronesian as they are hardly distinguishable from each other by appearance.

The original Turk was called 突厥 (modern: Tujue). They lived in Mongolia, not in the Middle East or the Western end of Central Asia. In the same region, there also lived the 匈奴 (modern: Xiongnu) and the Mongols.
So I would rather say that, originally the Turks were Mongoloids, but later they migrated Westward and intermixed with the "Caucasoid" people to form part-Mongoloid people. And then, in the place that now become the Turkey, they were outnumbered by the "Caucasoids", which made the Mongoloid part ignorable now after generations of admixture.

The proposed language family of "Altaic" also puts Turkish with Manchurian and Mongolian.

I believe you missed a "not" (which reverses the whole meaning).
You want to say that Vietnamese are not "Southern Mongoloid".

One question, I always thought the xiongnu and the mongols are one and the same ?

Why are they separate ?

They were separated by at least the timeline. The entities called "匈奴" and "蒙古" in Chinese history lived in different ages, no matter if they are related or not. There were also 鮮卑 Xianbei, 柔然 Rouran and 突厥 Tujue living in the same place inbetween 匈奴 and 蒙古.
Some people says that 鮮卑 is Sibe (which is why Siberia got its name), and now is 錫伯族, speaks a language of Tungusic branch instead of Mongolic branch of Altaic, if I'm not wrong.

I don't think that we got off to a good start.

Turks did live in Mongolia. Ainus did live in Japan (still does). Both of these groups are Caucasoid people originally came from West of the Ural Mountains. So were the Aryan tribes (ancesters of the Indians).

Unfotunately, if we are to bog down to disagreeing on such fundamental information ....

Actually, I doubt if Ainu is Caucasoid. Maybe more "Australoid"?
I can't say about any evidence that they were from West of Ural Mountains.
But I do know that there were the Tocharians just near there.

How about the Yakut people?

Ainu are neither Caucasoid nor from west of the Urals. They are believed to be an archaic form of Mongoloid, the so-called Paleomongoloids, and have retained some distinctiveness due to a long period of genetic isolation on the Japanese archipelago, while Neomongoloid evolution was taking place on mainland Asia. They appear to be related to Southeast Asians and Australoids in some respects as well, such as Sundadonty.

Thank you for that bit of information, DaMo,
I had never read that and just could never quite agree with the theory that the Ainu were Caucasoid.
What you just explained makes much more sense.

Ainu is not a good example. Genetic testing shows that the Ainu is not genetically related to Europeans.

However, the Turks, together with their relative, the Finno-Ugaric people, originated from West of the Ural mountains. They migrated to Mongolia at the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago. Turks are related to FU people through language.

I will be happy to read about any genetic testing to show the Turk's origins. The last genetic testing I read about the Turks - it showed that the Turks are as genetically different from Asians as they are from Germans - which proved nothing. (Or it proves the they originated midway between Asia and Germany.)

According to this

http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_altaic.html

Turks originated from the altaic mountains, the same as the mongolians.

Sorry, I still don't understand.

Are they related ? I though xiongnu is the older name for mongolian people ?

Seriously..
moderator has to come in here ..
every single post on this thread is flase.

don't guess where other people may have originated from unless you can back up your statment with proof.

----

Hsiungnu or Xiongnu is a nomadic confederation formed after the fall of Qin dynasty to counter Han kingdom.

Han paid tribute of Xiognu for 70 years thereafter.

----

Finno-Ugric people migrated from Altay area to present day Finland Scandinavia.

----

Turks originated from area bordering eastern mongolia and manchuria, and moved west.


http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8034

I have read the same and smilar accounts many times.

Unfotunately, it is not that simple:

1. Turkic language has some similarity to the Finno-Ugric language. (Ataturk (father of modern Turkey) even claimed that the origin of the Turks was Finland.) However, when the Turks were connected with the Finns, the Finns lived west of the Ural mountains.

2. One branch of the Turks, the Turkomans, was a very vicious group. Because of their viciousness, they seldom intermixed with other people. Because of this lack of mixing, they probably still retain the original Turkic physical features. I have seen photos of Turkomans - they resemble dark haired Caucasions, and not yellow skinned Mongols. Across the street where I park my car is the local Turkoman social club. I see these Turkomans entering and leaving their social club. I would not mistake these Turkomans for Mongols, or any other East Asians.

Wikipedia is a wonderful book; but if we believe everything written in Wiki, what the point of having this Forum?

If I didn't misinterpret your word, then it would be a newer theory than even Ural-Altaic superfamily.
Even in the Ural-Altaic superfamily theory, Turkish is closer to Mongolian than any Uralic language as it still belongs to the Altaic branch.
Superfamily is not agreed by too many people... and I can't imagine how "Sino-Caucasian" superfamily exists as we see that Ural is closer to Caucasian and Chinese is closer to Mongolian.
So what does the languages show us now about the origin?

We can't be too sure whether they are related...
The original Mongol was said to have been called "Mengwu Shiwei", where Shiwei is a bigger community from the northeast China (or eastern part of Mongolia?). But surely they will mix with the local community.

They should have already been there before even Qin dynasty ruled.
Xunyu 薰鬻 and Xianyun 獫狁 seem to be the previous names of Xiongnu 匈奴.

I also have doubts to it... though I saw in the Y-chromosome map that the haplotype N forms a very big percentage (a little more than 1/3) in Saami (speak Finno-Ugric languages), which is actually very close to the haplotype O commonly found in East/Southeast Asia.

The regular classifications put Turks together with Mongolians (both in Altaic language family) instead of the Uralic people. Though some people still think they are similar, and put them in a larger Ural-Altaic superfamily.
You can look at the regular classification here:
http://www.ethnologue.org/show_family.asp?subid=90009 (Altaic)
http://www.ethnologue.org/show_family.asp?subid=90209 (Uralic)

and about the claim...
It reminds me of Xiongnu claiming Huangdi (or some other person in Chinese legend?) to be their ancestors, or that the Koreans that claim they are related to Dongyi.

By Turkoman you mean the people in Turkmenistan?
As long as they settle down instead of being nomadic... there might be mixtures unless the law/code forbade it.
How vicious were those people? It would make me imagine like a bunch of horse archers... which just raid the neighboring states.

The mixture of "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid" in Central Asia probably started a very long time ago, well before the Westward migration of the Turks. And there can also be language replacement.

About other speakers of Turkic.. Many Uighurs look not very like East Asian. Yakuts in Sakha also speak Turkic language, and I suppose that it's far from ancient "Caucasoid" migrants.. and they don't look very Caucasian.

I should mention that the Ural-Altaic language family is still very speculative. Even the existence of the Altaic family is not without controversy.

Remeber My map only shows peoples recorded in history books not prehistoric origins.

Thus in my history books it say turks were first recorded to be living as metal workers around altai moutains, or that xiongnu were descendents of xia dynasty refugees who fled north to the ordos, or that donghu ie the mongolic peoples lived near daxingan mountain ranges in inner mongolia while tungusic sushens lived near ussuri river.

If you want to prove otherwise then you must show proof.
And plz don't say modern day turks live in west asia and don't look mongoloid thus must have originated west of urals because modern day turks are thousand years later then ancient turks and live in completely different regions.
If one looks at yakuts, kazakhs, krygz or altais or tuvans who live near to their ancetrial lands one can see that they are still mongoloid.

During the past number of years, there has been research on the origins of the various Steppe people. The lead researchers were from the USSR (Russians), but there were others. The research consisted mainly of archeological excavation, including the excavation of ancient tombs. The results of these research have been published, mainly in the Russian language, but some of these publications have been translated into English. I have quoted from 2 of these research papers in my latest post in the Xiongnu discussion thread, so I am not going to repeat them here. The Turks are supposed to be the descendents of the Afanas'evo people who lived north of the Altai Mountains. The Afanas'evo people's origin was west of the Ural Mountains (and Caucasian).

The British went into Jamaica, and became the dominant people there. The British was Caucasian and White. Now most of the British people have left Jamiaca: the present Jamaican people are NOT Caucasian and NOT White. (If the present Jamaicans are non-Causasian and non-White, why would one expect the present Altaic residents to be Caucasian and White?)

The Tocharians were Indo-European; the Afanesevo culture people were descendents of Uralic immigrants. I assume that you all know the distinction between Indo-European people and Uralic people. The Afanesevo people were not the ancestors of the Tocharian people.

At one time, Europeans demonized the Huns and the Turks as Mongolic looking (a most undesirable trait). They even demonized the Magyars/Hungarians. Then the Magyars/Hungarians made friends with the Germans, and came under the protection of the Germans (a powerful European people); then the demonizing of the Magyars subsided. (Some Magyars can still trace their ancestors to Turks or even Mongols.)

Jamaica is not a good example.
The modern non-Caucasian Jamaicans were also not the descendants of Native American people who lived there earlier, but rather are mostly from forced immigrants from Africa. And according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica the proportion is much more towards Africans because they imported too many Africans rather than massive emigration of whites from there. ("By the beginning of the 19th century, the United Kingdom's heavy reliance on slavery resulted in blacks outnumbering whites by a ratio of almost 20 to one")

I assumed the Afanesevo to be Indo-European instead of Uralic, from this quote of Encyclopaedia Britannica:
and also this Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanasevo_culture

Why was that look undesirable? Because of historical raids from the East? Or was it simply just racism like towards the Subsaharan Africans?
Was the "demonization" of the Magyars the same with Mongols or Turks?

It would not be strange assuming part of ancestors of Finno-Ugric people were also Mongoloid. (assuming the big percentage of the N-haplogroup Y-chromosome is related to those found in Yakut and Samoyed/Nenets)

EDIT: below looks more like Asian than typical Saami
http://www.shinshu.co.jp/lensai/finland/fin_phot/saami.JPG
I don't know if there's anything wrong, though. http://www.shinshu.co.jp/lensai/finland/fin21_25.html

Koreans and Japanese are Northern Mongols. The great wall of china DOES NOT seperate south to north mongols. That is a very flawed idea. It was the Yangtze river that seperated them, which is near shanghai stretching westwards. Please do not make some flawed map if you dont have any idea what you know.

Koreans are basically the Tunguisic people today. Morphically, they represent the Tunguisic features that their ancestors exhibited. They were descendants of various Mongolian Tribes along with the Xibe and Jurchens which are all parts of the Northern Mongol stock. Linguistically, they are in the Atlaic/Turkik/Mongolic linguistic group similar to that of Japanese.

Northern Chinese also are similar to Koreans in appearance. This includes higher cheekbones (a resemblance of the Tunguisic facial morpology) and taller structure and a higher frequency of the Mongolian spot (although similar to southern mongols). Larger bones also occur in Korea and Northern China and they are somewhat stockier, have larger faces and heads.

The epicanthus debate is slightly flawed. The epicanthal fold occurs indefinately in Asia, American India, and even in non-asiatic peoples. Though higher frequencies occur in China and even higher in the Korean regions. However again this is debatable.

There are ofcourse going to be some Southern Chinese being similar in body structure to their Northern folk and some Koreans/Japanese/Northern Chinese who look like Southern Chinese. But again, this type of scientific field is about generalizing and isnt a totally accurate description of geographical locations, migration routes and people and their relations.

Also Southern Chinese are considered Southern mongols. Han isnt a set in stone thing. Han China is very diverse and mixed with Northern mongols and Southern. This is why Chinese have distinct looks in different regions. Han Chinese cannot be generalized into one category.

Southern Chinese don't look like Indonesian/Malays, and they don't even appear to be closer to each other than Southern to Northern Chinese. That makes me confused why some people keep saying both are Southern Mongoloid.
It just seems as if they have never seen Indonesians/Malays.

Southern mongol doesnt mean you are mixed with Malays/Austronesian/Indonesians. However there are some Malays/Indonesians/etc that have Southern Chinese blood through intermixing, etc.

Well, but we are judging and classifying more than one people by appearance and whenever they don't appear close enough we separate them.
Wouldn't it be nonsense that most Zhejiang-nese appear closer to Malays than Beijinger?

Actually Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese's split is quite definate. There are some common differences in physical characteristics that split the North from the south. Of course there is genetic variation everywhere but this is distinguishing the general populations from a general view. People south of the Yangtze river are Southern mongols whereas the ones related to the North are called northern mongols. However its not likely someone is "pure" southern mongol and someone who is pure north mongol because of different transportation.

Some Characteristics to distinguish North and South mongols:

North mongols have:

somewhat taller structure
higher cheekbones
a slightly more projecting nose
more frequent epicanthal fold



South mongols have:

somewhat shorter stature
a flatter nose
less frequent epicanthal fold

that's not true at all. Infact it's completely the opposite. Turkmen culture strongly revolves around "Turkic purity" and often they will accuse different tribes of having more Persian admixture, which is very true to a large extent due to their proximity to Indo-European ethnicities such as Persians, Tajiks, Pashtuns, etc.
Tribes who retain more Asiatic features are thought to have less Persian admixture.. you'll find groups such as the Tekes, and the Yomud/Yomut who boast about being more pure Turkmen and other tribes being Turkicized Persians. In reality, most Turkmen have large admixtures of Persian and other Indo European in them due to centuries of contact with them, however finding Turkmens with more Mongoloid traits is not uncommon.

you can see here, the one on the left shows stronger Mongoloid traits while the ones on the right show stronger Indo-European features

Koreans are related to Mongolians. Here is proof by DNA sampling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_O2b_%28Y-DNA%29

"Haplogroup O2b (SRY465, a.k.a. M176) is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is a descendant haplogroup of Haplogroup O2. Haplogroup O2b is found in the northeastern parts of East Asia, from the Daur people of Inner Mongolia to the Japanese of Japan. This haplogroup is found with its highest frequency and diversity values in the modern population of Korea and are absent among Chinese populations."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_C3_%28Y-DNA%29

Y Haplogroup C3 Is another Y haplogroup relation only between Koreans, Tunguisics, Turkics, East Siberians, Jomons and Mongolians.

"Haplogroup C3 is the modal haplogroup among Mongolians and most indigenous populations of the Russian Far East, such as the Northern Tungusic peoples, Koryaks, and Nivkhs. The subclade C3b-P39 is quite common among males of the indigenous North American peoples whose languages belong to the Na-Dené phylum. The frequency of Haplogroup C3 tends to be negatively correlated with distance from Mongolia and the Russian Far East, but it still comprises more than ten percent of the total Y-chromosome diversity among the Manchus, Koreans, Ainu, and some Turkic peoples of Central Asia although in a genetic study in 2004, haplogroup C3 was more frequent among Koreans than previously thought."

"One particular haplotype within Haplogroup C3 has received a great deal of attention for the possibility that it may represent direct patrilineal descent from Genghis Khan."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Y-chrom...DNA_haplogroups

There are references at the bottom so this fact isnt false its just experimental evidence. Now you people cant argue Koreans are descendants of ancient Mongolian tribes that intermixed together. Why is this so hard to believe and why does someone have to prove it to you? Its very evident in the history and culture of Koreans.

Some of these Y chromosome haplogroups are mutations of the Haplogroup F.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_F_%28Y-DNA%29

The only mutation versions of Haplogroup F found in Koreans are:

O2b (SRY465 (M176)) Typical of Koreans, Japanese, and Ryukyuans

N1 (M128) Found at a low frequency among Manchu, Sibe, Manchurian Evenks, Koreans, northern Han Chinese, Buyei, and some Turkic peoples of Central Asia

There are references at the bottom if you think Wikipedia is not the truth.

Some Culture similarities:

Korean and Mongolian shamanism (actually very similar practices and traditions)
Korean and Mongolian barbecue
Both good at archery in ancient and modern times
Mongolian birth mark (though present in most Asians)
Korean language is linked with the Altaic/Tunguisic languages like Mongolian

Now please alter your map into Koreans with direct lineage to Mongolians, Tunguisics. And isnt it obvious that Great Wall of China was built from half of Korea to all the way to China? This allowed Mongolians to migrate to Korea because they were not able to go across the great wall.

I am not objecting to separating South Chinese with North Chinese, but about putting South Chinese with Indonesian. The difference is big enough compared to South vs North Chinese.
Maybe the people who first started it could not even distinguish Siberian from Indonesian, and only got some data from immunity genes.

Koreans are possibly related closer to Mongolians than North Chinese, but the O haplogroup is just common in East Asia.
O2 something are also found in quite a high frequency in Southeast Asia.

I suppose that people migrated to Korean before Great Wall existed. And the linguistic difference between Mongols and Koreans appears to be very big compared to Chinese to Tibetan.

O2b is completely different to O2a. Stop confusing yourself. O2b exists in North East Asia, O2a exists in South East Asia. Also what links Korean language to Altaic/Tunguisic languages is that its grammar is totally opposite that of English/Chinese/others and this suggests that Korean language must be rooted to Mongolian influence on the Korean peninsula not so long ago.

The "usual" classification does not put Korean and Japanese together with Altaic languages.
http://www.ethnologue.com/family_index.asp
Korean as Language Isolate, and Japanese in its language family.

The very simple grammars of some language bordering Chinese also do not put them in Sino-Tibetan.
The difference between Mongolian and Korean should be starting far before Chinese and Tibetan split. Grammar doesn't have to change that fast.

I think a lot of people in this forum have never seen filipino/malaysian/indonesian malays.

What's that phrase " all east asians look the same ?"

There are even some chinese who lump the south east asians with the southern chinese.

hi peter,

i have found this topic while searching the net for turkic history.
i am a turk from turkey and of turkmen origin. it is a big mistake to compare the ancient turks with the modern turks of turkey. while turkmens in turkmenistan are heavily mixed with iranian people, i would guess that 90% of the population in turkey never had turkic ancestors. they are are all descendants of the anatolian mix that lived there before the land come under the rule of a few turks. the only thing that is turkic about them is their language.

I am surprised that people are insisting that Turkic languages are members of the Finno-Ugric family. All the material I have come across classified them to be Altaic, same as Mongolian. Some older material further related the Altaic and the Finno-Ugric languages as a bigger family. However recent classifications always keep them apart. Some Turkic people look like Europeans. But this is a result of intermarriage. The Ottoman Turks interbred extensively with the Greeks which they conquered. In the case of the Uighurs, they live in the area formerly occupied by Scythians, and this area has changed hands many times, resulting in a very mixed people. But the Turkic element seems to have dominated linguistically.

Vietnamese is an Austro-asiatic language, not Austronesian. Thus the language is related to that of the Khmers and Mons. The negrito people of Malaya (Asli people) also speak this language. In this latter case, it is likely they were a mixed race adopting the language of the dominant group). We should also note that the original speakers of Austro-asiatic (and for that matter, Austronesian) are also Mongoloids. The differences in features only indicate the amount of negrito blood in them due to intermarriage. Paleolithic Negrito people (who look like the Australian Aborigines) lived in most of Southeast Asia and South China prior to the big migration of Mongoloids southwards, which displaced these people. Other contribution of course also include climate and diet.

In the frontline of the Mongoloid push southwards are the Austro-asiatic and Austronesian, who might have split only when the latter moved to Taiwan and lived there in isolation as early as 5000 BC. It was from Taiwan that the Austronesian peoples moved to occupy island Southeast Asia (i.e the Malay, Indonesian and Filipino peoples) and subsequently Polynesia (e.g. Hawaiians and Maoris). Right behind the back of these frontline Mongoloids are the Proto-Tai and the Sino-Tibetan peoples, particularly the latter. The expansion of the Chinese empire greatly accelerated the movement south, both of the Han people and also the Austro-asiatic peoples. From the far north, the nomads also continued to exert pressure and migrate into Chinese lands. Thus it is a continuous expansion that was only checked by the arrival of the Europeans.

One should not forget that the American natives are also Mongoloids who have migrated overland via Alaska, and possibly overseas too.

The genetic makeup of the Native Ameericans is not that simple. It is true that the Alaskan, Western Canadian, West coast, much of the Central and South American are predominately Mongoloid, but with influence of South Asian ethnic groups, but Eastern Native Americans are not clearly Mongoloid.

Primary migration was likely by boat, and not over land.

not entirely correct... DNA evidence suggests that earliest migrations were by boat along Pacific Rim before end of the Ice Ages by peoples with australoid genotypes, but later migrations were mostly overland and carried siberian and "mongoloid" genotypes, but distinct from modern east asian types...Y haplotype C (classical mongolian marker) has been found only in a few native american populations such as in north american plains, but great majority of native americans males belong to Y haplotype P or Q, which is closer to modern caucasian than east asians...

I think it's the native indians of the United States that are of non-mongoloid origin because of their non-mongoloid look, but the Natives in Canada have this slight mongoloid feature that makes them distinct from those in the US. The inuits in the NWT, Yukon and Nunavut have more of the mongoloid feature though..

the "mongoloid" natives in canada should be related to the plains indians of the united states, and its been show that they carry mongolian DNA markers... its likely that they migrated to the americas thousands of years after the earliest migrants (non-mongoloid)...

2 peter S

Stop your BS

Turkic languages & people belong to the Altaic branch and not to the Uralic

and It's a know fact that the Turks come from teh Yenisey basin Siberia and live for centuries in what is now Modernday Mongolia they Pushed into Central asia in 6th cent AD