Could anyone tell me more about those Indo-Europeans or Caucasians in those ethnics of Age Of Fragmentation on the middle earth (not on NorthWest of China)?

Here's some limited infomation:
There are Sogdianas(粟特),Kang(康) among 5 Hu on North China which came from Central Asia.
Jie, the MuRong Tribe of XianBei, Dingling

Is there any research or archeology result?

Don't know about others but XianBei is a Tungusic people who are more Mongoloid than anyone else. They may have fair skin, but the most pronouncing difference between Caucasoids and Mongoloids is not skin colour.

A nation is always formed with several other nations or ethnics, so nation name is even meaningless.
If I ask what's the race of americans? The answer only can be 60% or more of them are Causasion.
Others are negroes, indians or asians.
So the same question exist in Chinese ancient nations.
XianBei,XiongNu also composed by many complex ethnics, it's only a name of a tribes coalition.other thnics can
call thenselves as XianBei or XiongNu, after they joined or captured.
In mordern China, many other ethnics,such as Yue, manChu, call themselves as Han regularly for a long time,
but the face is different from geniune Han ethnic obviously.
So the original XianBei was Tungusic or Mongolian, but we can't regard all the tribes as Tungusic.
There are some big tribes in XianBei,such as Yuwen, Toba, Murong, Duan, Tuyuhun, across the whole Northern China, from NorthEast plain to Tibet plateau. It's diffcult to imagine all of them are from NorthEast forest Tungus, who amount is very low.
And it's also questionable that only Murong's skin is white than others while they are all in one race.
So Murong is a tribe came from the west, joined or being captured by XianBei and mixed was more reasonable.
There's also a record that one of Jin's emperor's hair is yellow,while his mother is a princess of Murong.
and many Han's nobles like to marry Murong's woman in Jin Dynasty.
It's clearly Murong's face white and beautuiful, at least quite different from other tribes of Xianbei,
and other Hus(foreign ethnics).
So I want to know if there's some detailed research about these questions.

a - Where is it stated that only Murong were fair-skinned among the Xianbei?
b - Since when is fair skin exclusive to Caucasians?

Fair skin is a fairly (no pun intended) common trait in Northeast Asia and is independent of Caucasian lineage, as two genetics studies published in 2006 show. Just because a people are "white-skinned", it does not mean they are "White".

I don't think there is any concept of so-called "white race" during the period of Age of fragmentation. Race is just a concept born out of the 20th century western anthropology to group people according to skin colour.

Xianbei and Xiongnu (if I'm not wrong) are 'mongoloid' even though they are turkic.

Some Turkic people are generally whiter than others suggesting they maybe a mix of Caucasian and Mongoloid. Even some ethnic han are whiter than other ethnic han suggesting a mix.

I mensioned skin doesn't mean I judge the race by skin,
I raise 1 doesn't mean their is no 2, please check.
If you haven't read it doesn't mean it's not exist, it just becuase you read not enough.
your knowledge is a little old and conservative, I think.
here's an article in Chinese about these ethnics thought their's still debating, they are based on modern archeology
and DNA research and ancient diucments:
(these paper are quite long, I only select some parts fro reference:)

《晋书》和《世说新语》载王敦称晋明帝为:“黄须鲜卑奴”。黄头指的是金发,黄须指的是黄胡子,可见晋明帝的相貌特征就是金发黄胡子,这是白种人的相貌特征。该文献明确指出晋明帝的相貌与其母族类似,而其生母据说是鲜卑人。唐代诗人张籍在咏西晋灭亡的《永嘉行》中开篇写道:“黄头鲜卑入洛阳,胡儿执戟升明堂。”后人苏轼在观赏唐人韩干的画时赋诗,其中一句是:“赤髯碧眼老鲜卑”,说明在唐人的画作中,鲜卑人的形象也是红须碧眼的,唐代社会普遍将黄须碧眼看成是鲜卑人的相貌特征。

1 No matter when it's named or sorted , the races exists from the begining of history.
You can give any other name to the White Race I refered.

2 As your opinion , who is caucasian? Arabs? mixed with africans. Iberians? mixed with africans too. Indians? mixed with Dravidians.
Of course, Turks mixed with mongolians. All of these people are not considered as White Race or Caucasion?

3 I have said , the comprehesive name like XianBei, XiongNu is meaningless in race research.
They are the name of a great united tribes all over the steppe.
(Xianbei is mongoloid only means the original core Xianbei tirbes were mongoloid, this conclusion is very unscientific)

My genetic evidence is quite recent, I assure you.

Now I am thoroughly confused. First you want to know about "Indo-Europeans or Caucasians" in a topic called "The 'White' Races of Age of fragmentation". In the same post, you mention "MuRong Tribe ... was decribed with white skin". Then you say you don't "judge the race by skin".

When you speak of "white races", do you mean peoples who appear Caucasoid, or peoples who appear European, or simply peoples with fair skin? Hope you will clarify.

Of all the ethnicity in AOF, only the Jie and Xiongnu were probably truely caucasian, since the former were Sogdians the later includes elements of both mongoloid and caucasian. We have no grounds to suppose that the Murong were Caucasians or even contain any significant number of them.

as far as i know, the Jie were the only "caucasoid" people who made an impact during the age of fragmentation. Caucasoid is not exclusive to Europeans. Arabs, Iranians,Indians are all caucasoid and far from being "white"

Are you joking? is it worthy to discuss people of white skin in a history forum?
Learn more logics from aristotle, please.

It's no need to raise all the reason for one result, I 'm not proving it, I only mensioned it. So I mensioned skin,a simple fact. Then you asked, I mensioned some other facts. If you don't know these, please seek these knowledge yourself. read more books.

If I say europeans has high nose, will you blame me :" How can you judge european by nose?"
I say Murong has a white skin, have I say :" I judge Murong by skin"?
I mean Murong is more like Indo-european, and their white skin is a fact, but I didn't say they are Indo-european Because their skin is white.

Your question exposed that you haven''t read enough about Murong-
Can you read Chinese I post? Should I translate to you?
It decribe Murong( actually it described XianBei) as Yellow-haired and blue eyed and white skined in several ancient documents.

Exactly how "more like Indo-european" are we talking here? In what aspect(s)? Language? Culture? Physical Appearance? Relative to whom?

Yes, a translation along with the original Chinese text would be nice.

In the meantime, you might want to see this 2007 study on Murong genetics: http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:17632796
And one of the two aforementioned 2006 studies on skin color in East Asians: http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/3/710

As I said earlier, my genetic evidence is quite recent.

Of course, they are not white, but they are White Race.

I say Murong not only White Race , they are White Race with white skin.
After an more progressive research, another two Caucasian tribes added temporarily: Dingling, LushuiHu
Now, Jie, Sute(sogdiana),Kang, Murong, Dingling, Lushui can be sorted to Caucasian mainly.
XiongNu was still a puzzle, there's a debate about them, could you give me your evidence to prove
they are Caucasian? Many historian consider them as Mongoliod.
XiongNu is too complex, I don't think it's easy to say. And I can't find any description of their appearance
in ancient documents.
Tuoba tribe of XianBei is more like Mnogolian or Tungsic, they have a pig tail and 'ugly' face like Manchu is a evidence.
But Yuwen, Duan I cannot tell, but Duan is very near to Murong.
Some other ethnics, Qiang, Di, can be consider as Monogloid clearly.
But Ba was not sure, they are too tall than ordinary mongolians.

There's very few historian working on this field, for it's taboo in China,
so I want to know more from overseas.

Welcome more disussion.

Hehe, thanks.
But how the genetic evidence you got? Where's Murong XianBei?
From tomb? How can you define it's the body of Murong?
I m here waiting. and reading the links you provide, Thanks , I need more like this.

OK, I read it, but it's not a new evidence, I knew this DNA test before.
But they don't say how they judge the body from Lamadong as the body of Murong.
It only said the bodies form an ancient city of Yan founded by Murong.
These bodies can be other people in Yan, their slaves, prisoners, or else.
Also, caucasian found in shandong doesn't mean acient Chinese in shangdong is caucasian.
You know Indo-europeans buried in fire mostly.

《晋书》卷6《明帝纪》
又敦正书寝,梦日环其城,惊起曰:“此必黄须鲜卑奴来也。”帝母荀氏,燕代人,帝状类外氏,须黄,敦故谓帝云。
Book of jin, Volume 6, Annual of Emperor Ming:
One day WangDun( the Great General) dream of the sun surrounding his city, he got up in fear
and cried: "Comes the Yellow-beard XianBei !" Xun, the mother of emperor is from Yan, so the emperor
is more like his mother, with yellow beards, so does WangDun say.


永嘉行
唐五代• 张籍
黄头鲜卑入洛阳,胡儿执戟升明堂。
晋家天子作降虏,公卿奔走如牛羊。
紫陌旌幡暗相触,家家鸡犬惊上屋。
妇人出门随乱兵,夫死眼前不敢哭。
九州诸侯自顾土,无人领兵来护主。
北人避胡多在南,南人至今能晋语。

A poem by ZhangJi, Tang Dynasty described the fall of West Jin:
"Came to Luoyang, those yellow-head Xianbeis,
Foreigners entered palace, with spear in hand.
The emperor of Jin, now became captive,
officials fled away, like sheep and cows"
...

苏轼题唐画诗《书韩干二马》
赤髯碧眼老鲜卑,
回策如萦独善骑。
赭白紫骝俱绝世,
马中岳湛有妍姿。
Another famous poet Sushi of Song write a poem for a portrait:
"An old Xianbei, with red beard and blue eyes.
good at equitation, master of riding"
...

one is history record, one is a poem , one is a poem of a portrait.
from different person and different time.

Above are the descriptions of their hair color.
There're also description of the their skin I've mensioned, maybe you 've known already.
There are also much more description of their strapping body and handsome looking.
I can enumerate and translate these records from ancient Chinese docs for you when I have leisure
if you haven't read these before.

If you say Murong with white skin and yellow hair/beard and high stature is not caucasoid,
how can you say Jie is caucasoid only with high nose and beards?
You may conclude Murong as Mongoloid based on an DNA test of some discovered body near a Murong's city
only after you can prove they are Murong's body and give a sound explanation to the ancient description.
Thanks.

that poem was written almost three centuries after the fall of Xi Jin, what source is the poet using to determine the phenotype of Xianbei

Secondly, the Xianbei had little to do with the fall of Western Jin dynasty. It was 刘渊 Liu Yuan and his Xiong Nu troops that ultimately toppled the Jin government, not the Xianbei

It means that it's a more general knowledge that some XianBei is yellow-haired
than ancient histories for the people in Tang Dynasty.

Please try to overthrow all the desciption, not one of them.

That old Caucasians-in-Shandong claim was based on flawed DNA analysis, as discussed at http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...t&p=4890011

As for the study, I presume the researchers have reason to believe the bodies are those of Murong.

In another study, the Tuoba also showed strong East Asian genetic affinity, especially Tungusic: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?D..._RVAbstractPlus

Now, about some evidence for your claim that the Murong are "more like Indo-European" ...

Oh, thanks, I learned more, I raised a demoded example.
But this flawed NDA analysis indicates that mistakes are easy to be made in DNA analysis.
Can you guarantee the DNA analysis on those 'MuRong' is not flawed or mistaken?
May it be corrected some year in the future?
The DNA techonology is being developed everyday, while those words on ancient docs are not.
Maybe you can say those ancient records are all forged or all wrong. Can'yt you?
Obviously, the ancient records and that DNA analysis are conflicting, one of them must be wrong.Which one?

Once again, you can consider Murong not as Caucasoid only after you give sound explanations of those records.
Such as yellow in ancient Chinese meant black, the records are forged, the writer were dreaming, etc.
After this you can consider them as Mongoloid when you give more evidence on it.

I have mentioned it in Post 13:
Tuoba tribe of XianBei is more like Mnogolian or Tungus, they have a pig tail and 'ugly' face like Manchu is an evidence.
Thanks for your link

Of course , Tuoba is Tungusic-Mongoloid as I have said, they have a pig tail as Manchu later recorded
in the same history book which described the yellow beard of Murong.

It's not an evidence of Murong's race, It means XianBei are formed by different races, It's a united tribes as I've said in post 7

I also wondered about the appearances of the Steppe people, the Xiongnus, Xianbeis, Khitans, Mongols, etc.

When I came across the meaning of Genghis Khan's clan name Borjigid which translated as "people with blue eyes" / "clan of the blue wolves" i asked a question how Genghis actually looked like?

Fellow forumer Karakhan has this to say:

maybe he simply had blue eyes. While black hair and dark eyes are common among far Northern/Central Asians, its not unusual to find one who has different colored eyes or hair. They will still look strongly mongoloid, just with a more unusual eye color or hair color. I've met a few Mongols with blue eyes and grey eyes, but I don't think they have any Caucasian descent.. just some unusual genetics here and there. (many ethnicities can have those attributes its just the percentages are different, with blue eyes being much more common in Europe with Asia, etc being less common but not impossible).

Supposed Mongols and other northern steppe peoples have blue eyes and maybe lighter coloured hair, they still could look Mongoloid instead of Caucasoid?

Above are the descriptions of their hair color.
There're also description of the their skin I've mensioned, maybe you 've known already.
There are also much more description of their strapping body and handsome looking.
I can enumerate and translate these records from ancient Chinese docs for you when I have leisure
if you haven't read these before.

If you say Murong with white skin and yellow hair/beard and high stature is not caucasoid,
how can you say Jie is caucasoid only with high nose and beards?
You may conclude Murong as Mongoloid based on an DNA test of some discovered body near a Murong's city
only after you can prove they are Murong's body and give a sound explanation to the ancient description.
Thanks.

Eyes, hair and skin colour could be due to climatic conditions. In the northern steppes, the climate would be colder and harsher. Could it be these factors that contribute to their fairer skin, lighter eyes and hair colour? (disclaimer - i am no expert) Many Han Chinese are also fair skinned especially the northerners. Myself, an overseas Chinese (Hakka), is fair skinned unlike most who are "yellow".

Jie's high nose is a Caucasoid characteristic, but that does not conclusively say they are Caucasoid. However, it is highly possible that some of steppe peoples are Mongoloid looking, some Caucasoid looking, and other a mixture of both ie Mongol-Turkic (is there such a term?)

My opinion only

Didn't chinese call the girls "yellow hair girl"? If there is DNA evidence, then of course you shall trust the DNA, not the poems. Mohist was said to have black face, but that doesn't mean he's black.

fyi people in Northern Asia at times have blonde hair. This is not because of admixture with Caucasians; it's autochthonic development. They also have very high cheekbones and ruddy faces.. you should not make assumptions.

Tallness and paleness has nothing to do with Indo-Europeans back then. The populations of Northern Asia are 2-4 inches taller than Southerners and some of them are quite ruddy (while some Southerners are very pale and porcelain white because of low elevation and high foliage) with otherwise white skin.

I doubt there were "whites" in China at all; just Turkic Caucasoids who were a minority. Excavations at Egyin Gol and near the Selene River yielded remains that are overwhelmingly "Mongoloid" too; iirc the Xiongnu originated from there with many other Mongolic tribes.

You can google for "Evenki" and "Mongol" and look at the pictures of people.. there are some blondes with very high cheekbones and narrow eyes.

Kingswonder assumes that the Murong had 'white skin' based on the statement in historical records that they were known to the Di as Bailu 白虏 (roughly translated as 'Whities'). But Bailu could be derived from something other than skin colour. Furthermore, it is a big leap from 'white skin' to 'Caucasoid features'. Are Caucasoids the only fair-skinned people around?

It's possible that some Xianbi had light-coloured hair. But the only surviving visual depictions of Xianbi people in tomb murals and figurines have black hair and basically 'Mongoloid' features, except for a few sharper noses. Some soldier figurines have big eyes and big mouths, and archaeologists sometimes assume these to be Caucasoid features, but they are more likely to be a way of making tomb guardians look more fearsome.

As for the late Tang and Song poems mentioning Xianbi hair and eye colour, I have a theory that by that time, people had already forgotten what a Xianbi looked like (Xianbi identity having been completely assimilated by then) and were prone to exoticizing them and linking them with Caucasoid peoples like the Uyghurs. Marc Abramson has analyzed a Tang-period scroll painting depicting great generals of early Tang. The generals who were of Xianbi descent are shown with big bulging eyes, dark faces, and bushy beards - a kind of stereotyped barbarian image - while the other generals have pale faces, small eyes, and neat moustaches or beards. I would infer that this is a late Tang scroll, and is a product of the same ignorance about real Xianbi physical appearances.

The xianbeis were originally mongolic from northern inner mongolia.

Murong xianbei would be the most pure mongoloid because they did not migrate or mix with others to the west.

Yuwen xianbei probrably had very small amount of caucasoid admixture becaused yuwen xianbei are descendents of a yuwen xiongnu tribe that conqured and assimilated into a larger xianbei tribe.

Touba xianbei would be the most caucasoid (about 5%-10%) of the xianbei because they are half mixed with xiongnu.

Jie are fully caucaoid of probrable scythian or tochorian descent,

Xiongnu are proto-tukic suppose to be about 10-20% caucasoid.

Di and Qiang are tibetic thus 100% mongoloid.

This is iffy, because the only statement that the Yuwen were originally a Xiongnu tribe comes from the Wei Shu, which was written under the Northern Qi, the enemy of the Yuwen-ruled Northern Zhou. The Yuwen themselves never claimed a Xiongnu origin.



That again is iffy. We know from ancient sources that the Tiefo Xiongnu were supposedly called Tiefo because they have Xianbi ancestry on the maternal side. But it is only a conjecture by some scholars that the word 'Tuoba' means the opposite of Tiefo, i.e. they have Xiongnu ancestry on the maternal side. That is never stated in the sources.



Actually, whether the Xiongnu language was more Turkic or more Mongolic is still a matter of great debate.



Sogdian is actually a higher possibility than either Scythian or Tocharian, since by the time the Xiongnu were overlords of Sogdiana, the Yuezhi and Saka had moved to other areas (i.e. Bactria and northern India).



What does Tibetic mean? Just because they come from southern Gansu and eastern Qinghai, which are now the very fringes of the Tibetan-speaking world, that doesn't mean they were closely related to the Tibetans or came from the Tibetan plateau, or even that their languages were closest to Tibetan.

A very important thing when dealing with ancient ethnic groups is to first put aside all theories and assumptions picked up from secondary sources, go direct to the ancient texts, and make sure what they say and what they don't actually say.

To you all,

1 Must distinguish different XianBei, discussing the race of XianBei is meaningless.
just like the race of Americans.

I have said XianBei is a global name of all the tribes on the steppe at that time.
So all the conclusion of XianBei is nothing and missleading.
Such as "The xianbeis were originally mongolic from northern inner mongolia." should be
altered to the earliest XianBei(or the XianBei of TanShiHuai)
And this XianBei has nothing to do with MuRong or Duan.
Does " the Modern Americans were originally from England" meaning Micheal Jackson's ancestor
is from England?

"The generals who were of Xianbi descent are shown with big bulging eyes, dark faces, and bushy beards"
should be altered to "...were of YuWen or Tuoba XianBei..."
You know the XianBei in Tang Dynasty were most descendant of Tuoba and YuWen,
and Tuoba was backward,dark face and ugly with a pig tail (so called SoLu索虏)in descriptions.
So Tuba,Yuwen and MuRong are of different races at all.

The MuRong as White Race in Mongolian dominant XianBei is just like African Americans as negroid Race
in Caucasian dominant United States now.

Could a historian 5000 years later predicate Condoleezza Rice must be Causasian by photos of some
American Presidents(while her photo was lost then)?

2 The Caucasians in ancient China is not rare.
The mummies in Luolan(Lowland?), the bones in Long Island, ShanDong, are concluded by historians
as Caucasoid and admitted by the Chinese governmentm and even were shown in TV.
They were White People in China more than 5000 years ago.
The YueZhi 月氏 and WuSun 乌孙 were all Causasoid ethnics , which living in Western of River
(GanSu Province of China) before Han Dynasty.
They were White People in China 2000 years ago.

But the portion of Caucaians was decaying continously. From all the mummies of Loulan, the Mongloid
mummies were more as the time went by, and Caucaoid mummies were fewer later.
The race of Northern Steppe people changed from Causasians dominant to Mongolian Dominant.

And current status of races of Northern Steppe was formed only after the Whirlwind of Mongolians at 13rd
centry.
So the land Mongolian dominant now doesn't mean there's no Causasians before, just like the Islamic
Eastern Turkeystan nowadays doesn't mean there's no Buddhism 1500 years ago.

The rejection of Causasians existed in ancient China is mainly based on the view from current status,
and will a historian thousands years later reject the ever dominant existance of Yellow Race(Inians) in America
when the history of the discovery of New Continent was lost?

The current reality is so solid and nature that it makes people think it seems like this from the beginning.
(especially when the history is forgotten or not so clear)
But the truth of history is always another one. And the World is changing so greatly.

kingswonder you cannot assume that anyone who is not a pure mongoloid to be a caucasoid. Would you accept it if I said Russians are mongoloid since there are some mongoloid admixtures among them? If not then don't assume that a tiny caucasoid admixiture in nomads of the east makes them "caucasoid" , they are simply euro-asians with more asian genes then euro.

Very good.
I have said discussing a gobla name of nations is meaningless,
Russia is a global name like XianBei.
Of course, you can't say Russian is Mongoloid, but you can say Taratrs
or Kalmyks are Mongoloid as well as I can't say XianBei is Caucasoid,
but I can say MuRong is Caucasoid.

A vivid example today, Thanks for your tip.

I don't see the importance of this topic. That said, there is a reference in a Tang dynasty poem to a "yellow bristled horsemen from Ye" which could perhaps be taken to refer to a phenotype. While in that case it is probably an allusive literary device, as Ye had been for quite some time by then back under majority population domination, it may be the known phenotype of some of the invaders present in Ye in centuries past. I may quote the chinese directly later to see if an elaboration can be had.

I have also found doll artifacts in museums ascribed to the Xianbei curiously prominent and projecting in their noses

No you cannot say Murong was caucasoid but a few of the Murong tribesman might have had a small caucasoid admixture among them.

The pigtail is well known as a Tuoba hairstyle. But how do you know they were dark-faced and ugly?

There're some problems puzzling me. I want to get the answer somewhere or from someone.

1 Which clan or tirbe is the real Xianbei?
In the beginning, Xianbei is a small mongloid tribe(perhaps, Original XianBei belongs to Eastern Hu, if Eastern Hu is mongoloid). In the age of Later Han dynasty, as the decline of Huns, Xianbei began to replace Huns on the steppe.
At the reign of TanshiHuai 檀石槐 , Xianbei became a vast steppe empire as Huns, and all other tribes began to call themselves as Xianbei.
But at the age of fragmentation, there were several tribes called Xianbei, but with different apperance, and different tradition.
So in the well-knowing four-big tribe of Xianbei, Tuoba, Yuwen, Duan, Murong,and other some small tribe like Dugu, Zhangsun.
The questions is :
Which one is the descentant of the original Xianbei? and who are the other tribes self-claimed as Xianbei?
I can't find the answer in ancient documents.
At the list of ancestors of Tuoba and Murong, there's no Tanshihuai and other chieftans of Xianbei recorded in Han dynasty.
And as the record in Later Han, Xianbei was bareheaded(even woman), but Tuoba was pig-tailed, and Murong was long-haired.

2 Following the first question, there's the second question: who is the other fake 'Xianbei'.
For a example, if Yuwen is not a real Xianbei, then Yuwen is which tribe before they called themselves as Xianbei.

3 Is there anymore documents about Xianbei? I found detailed description about Tuoba(in History of the North 北史 and Book of Wei 魏书)and Murong(in Book of Jin 晋书)
but I can't find descriptions about other Xianbei, like Yuwen, Duan.
The description of the people apperance of Tuoba and Murong are quite different, Murong is long-haired, Tuoba is pig-taied, Murong is
white-skinned, while Tuoba is quite dark than Murong, Murong was described as beatiful woman or handsome man, while Tuoba was described as ugly ones (丑类)(and Yuwen was mentioned as dirty)。

4 Another question: What's the meaning and origins of Siberia, and is there a relation between Xianbei and Siber?

General_ZhaoYun,
The topic is not my original topic, who add the subtitle ---
'Are sogdiana Causasians'?

There are lists of the chieftains (daren 大人) under Tanshihuai in the Wei Lue 《魏略》passage on the Xianbi that is preserved in the Pei Songzhi commentary to Sanguo Zhi chapter 30. One of the chieftains is named Murong 慕容 and another is named Rilutuiyan 日律推演 and may have some relation to the two early Tuoba chieftains named Tuiyin 推寅.



There are brief descriptions of the Yuwen and Duan in the Wei Shu, but as I mentioned earlier, there may be some bias in the part about the Yuwen, including the claim that they were originally Xiongnu.



Where did you read that the Murong were long-haired?



丑类 was just a standard derogatory term used for barbarians. It had nothing to do with looks.



We discussed this before on another thread. Siberia is probably named after the Siber Khanate, but there is no evidence that the Siber Khanate was named after the Xianbi.

BTW, I prefer 'Xianbi' to 'Xianbei' because I think the ancient 卑 was pronounced 'bi' like 俾 and 婢.

Great! I would go to read those documents. Thanks.


a description of a Murong in Book of Jin:
"超身长八尺,腰带九围,精彩秀发,容止可观."
what a hair-style could be praised as brilliant hair? a pig-tailed, a cut, or a bareheaded?
so at least it's long hair, and maybe 披发 like Turki.
(if Murong's hair was a Han-style,结发 the hair maybe covered inside the cap.)
( I don't know how to say 结发 and 披发 in English, I think you must know)
There're detailed descriptions of the looking of all Murongs in Book of Jin, full of
praising words than any other persons, even than nobles of Jin, while there's no any appearance
praised or mentioned of other foreigners.

Why they use 丑类 as a disdain to barbarians? because barbarians are ugly in their eyes.
Like another word 胡 is a calling of nothern barbarians, but why they use this word?
because the northern barbarians were always with notable beard or mustache opposed to
ancient southern Chinese.
So it maybe Hu meaning beard, and then they named the barbarians with this sign, or Hu is the
name of the barbarian, then they name beard from who have it.
But at least Hu is connected with beard, and ugly ones is connected with ugly appearance.

Furthermore, Murong is also a barbarian tribe, but was never called ugly ones in documents.



Could you tell me who is Siber Khanate? and which language is Siber from? Russian or Turkish?
I can't find it.
And I found there's also a saying that modern 锡伯族 is the descendant of Xianbei(Xianbi), and
your opinion?

Actually, it's probably the other way round. The use of 胡须 and 胡子 to refer to facial hair appeared relatively later, and may come from the fact that in the Tang period, the people most commonly called Hu, i.e. Central Asians and Arabs, tended to have bushy beards. Long before the Central Asians and Arabs were called Hu, however, in the Qin-Han period only the Xiongnu were called Hu. And that term 'Hu' was probably a short form for 'Huna', the original pronunciation for 'Xiongnu' in ancient Chinese language. 'Huna' may come from 'hun', which is even today the Mongol word for 'person'. Because the Xiongnu called themselves 'hun' in their own language, the Qin-Han people called them 'huna', although those two characters are now pronounced 'xiongnu'. This is also likely to be the reason why there were other nomadic peoples called Hunni or Huna that invaded Europe and India. They were all speaking the same sort of language in which 'hun' just means 'person'.

But see also this thread http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17687



Actually, the chapters on the Murong in the Jin Shu are from the Shiliuguo Chunqiu, which was written in Northern Wei, and the author of Shiliuguo Chunqiu got his material on the Murong states from historical records written by Yan court historians. So they do not reflect what Jin officials thought about the Murong. Also, in the Wei Shu you will find many descriptions of Tuoba aristocrats as handsome, even though the Wei Shu was not written by a Xianbi.



No, 'chou' didn't just mean 'ugly' in ancient times. If you check a dictionary of 古代汉语 you will find examples where 丑类 means 恶人, 敌众, or 众低贱的人, without even referring to barbarians.

See this thread: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...c=9509&st=0

I don't know what is so controversial here.

Before 10,000 BCE, most humans were hunter gathers, even 2,000 years ago a significant population in Central and North East Asian were semi-nomadic all the way to the present. This is well known and well recorded by the Chinese.

The only barrier between Caucasoid and Mongoloids on Eurasia is the Hindu Cush and the Altai Mountains....one can easily travel around the Caucus Mountains over the steppe. The main mode of transportation would be horse and in some areas camel.

I have no doubt (as genetic test show) Central Asia was a crossroads at some point in history for everyone, you can even find Subsahara African genetic markers in that region (possible from ancient East Africans who were mercenaries for Persia and also later Turkic slave trades into Northern India, where there are still a very small amount of pure black Africans).

It is not shocking to me if there were semi-nomadic groups who were relatively small in number who were proto-mongoloid or proto-Caucasoid with some features of both groups, but with affinities to one or the other living in that area and some migrated West and some East from Central Asia.


In Pakistan, Afghanistan, Caucuses, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang you can still find people who do not look quite Mongoloid or Caucasoid. You can say this is from the Mongol expansion, Turkish Expansion, Greek expansion, Persian expansion...reality is it likely goes all the way back to pre-history.

I doubt there was any "pure racial" group in this area between West Eurasia, East Asia, and South Asia at the ground level...you might have had rulers who ere but the rank and file of the area were likely always "in-between" since humans first arrived they likely either look like the original people who came to the area over 60,000 years ago or they simple got varying input from population to the east, west, and south of them.

I have no doubt there might have been people with brown or even (what we call in America) "dirty blond" hair or people with light eyes living in Mongolia and I have no doubt there are more Mongoloid looking people living closer to Europe, in fact they still do. The Saami in Scandanavia...look at the singer Bjork who claims no known Mongoloid ancestry? You can find these type of people in Russia as well in the North near Finland and in the South near the Caucases...


Look in East Asia, at the Ainu in Japan, they have no genetic affinity to Europeans but the unmixed ones do not look Mongoloid. They look like depigmented Aborginees, some like people in India or even the Middle East. It might have been in ancient times many people in North East Asia looked like them before being overwealmed by more "pure" Mongoloid or Caucazoids...maybe the original Eurasian looked like Ainu. We do not know.

I think your perspective is a very sensible one. The only disagreement I have with kingswonder is his assertion that certain tribes of ancient Xianbi were known to be purely Caucasoid, and that this can be told from the historical records. I would submit that the historical records do not make it clear at all, and that such homogeneity within a Xianbi tribe is also quite unlikely. I also disagree with any assumption made on the basis of lines from late Tang poetry that the Xianbi were a completely or predominantly Caucasoid people. I don't think late Tang poets can be used as reliable historical sources in such a way.

The closest pure whites I would think would be Greeks left over from Alexanders army in Northern Afghanistan and the bordering areas (an area also known as Bactria around 300BCE). They did not live further East than that...They were men without women, so I assume they married local women, who were likely Caucasian, but not white...(more similar to Persian or Northern Indian)...I seriously doubt a mixture of Greeks and Persian/Indians would produce blonds. haha

Then there is the Yuezhi (Tocharians). They were some ancient Caucasian group, whose language was Indo-European (similar to Persian and Hindi) but there specific type was more related to Celtic and Italic...along with their description implies they came from Europe at some point. The ones who lived in present day China were absorbed ty Turkic Uygurs...hence why some Uygurs have light hair and eyes and maybe some Caucasian features.

There were also the Scythians, who spoke a Persian language and were mostly Caucasian, but were composed of several tribes, some were Mongoloid (similar to a lot of steppe tribes like the Hun).

The furthest East any of these groups seemed to move was Xinjiang, and that was fairly late. Besides a few Caucasians who trickled in to China from the Silk Road I am not aware of any "European looking" people who might be blond or redhead that lived North of China proper at any time. The only people I could imagine might be some proto-Slavic Scythian horsemen...its possible, just unlikely. To my knowledge Scythians did not live far East of present day Kazakhstan.

Like I said, there have likely been "Caucasians" in China since prehistoric times...but they never seem large in number and very few of them could be described as "white or European"...they were more like Persians/Indian/Bacterian. I have no knowldge of significant populations of them in Mongolia or further East.

I have to doubt your opinion.
1 There're some other Hus besides Xiongu, like East Hu, Lin Hu(东胡,林胡), even from the time of Warring States.
2 The similarity of the pronounciations of Xiongnu and Hun is two few.
3 Why a nation call themselves only 'person', I don't know there's any nation's name means 'person'.
4 the reason why other nomadic people called Hunni because they came from the same side of Huns and seemed like another Hun tribe, so the Europeans also called them Huns, not they called themsevles Huns. just like Hu or Man in Chinese, only is a global name of some kind of people.


1 Jin had a ery close relation with Murong, and intermarriges between Chinese and Murong were more common than with other groups, Nobles of Jin were fond of Murong women as their concubines, like the nobles of Tang had a vogue to go to pubs of Huji(胡姬 foreign maid). Even the second emperor of Eastern Jin had a yellow hair because his mother had an ancestry of Murong or Duan. When Jin lost its homeland of Central Earth, Murong was the only faithful subordinated tribe who still kept communication with Jin via sea routes.So Jin knew much details about Murong.
2 Tuba (Tuoba), the dominators of North Wei, took a strong hostile attitude to Murong. They even didn't see Murong as Hisen-pi(Xianbei), in the history book of NorthWei - Book of Wei, Murong and Duan was called Tuhe(徒河) not Xianbei.So they shouldn't give a praising depiction to Murongs.
3 I read some chapters of Book of Wei, but even in this book, none of the emperors of Tuba had a depiction of appearance.
So if they were handsome or tall, this book must not neglect this. But in the Book of Jin, even every Murong prince (a dozen of) was praised as tall, hansome and brave. (The contrast is so strong, even JinYong(金庸) in his novels always give some hansome man a surname of Murong.) At least it's so special.

For a example:"白兰山西北,又有可兰国,风俗亦同。目不识五色,耳不闻五声,是夷蛮戎狄之中丑类也。"
The author wasn't the enemy of this tribe, but called them as Choulei (Ugly Ones), so the original meaning of Choulei
is backward, dirty, and ugly, not enemy. but it became a disdain calling of enemies later.

If people want to make the case that there was some Caucasians who were Persian/Indic looking who might have made early headway out of Central Asia into Northern China or Southern Mongolia at some early period I would say that is likely.

If you want to say there was a significant population of Nordic/pro-Slavic looking people or a kingdom of them living in this area at that time period, I would say that is highly unlikely. Actually being that the genes for light skin only came about 12 thousand years ago in Caucasians (and those genes are different from the one's that cause light skin in East Asia) I would say the idea that it could have diffused so fast from Northern Europe out to Northern China among Caucasian populations due to gene flow would be highly unlikely. Typically in Caucasians blonde hair does not tend to exist in populations that are not fair in complexion.

On the contrary. It's just Nordic Caucasians not Indo-Iranian in ancient East Turkestan, even Mongolia.
The mummies found in Tarim basin are most of Nordic Caucasians and not Indic.
And East Asians and Indo-Iranians came into Tarim basin rather later, maybe at Han Dynasty.
Then the pure Nodics were gradually replaced by Mongolians, Chinese and Indo-Iranians.
The last indendent Nordic states in Tarim Basin may be Tocharian states in Tang dynasty.
And some other Nordic tirbes on the steppe vanished more earlier.
Some of them were exclude by Tukish or Mongoloid tribes, have to moved west, like Yuezhi and Usun, who
originally living in mordern Gansu(even North Shanxi)of China.
Some of them were captured as slavery tribe and forced to migrate eastward, like Murong, Sute, Kang, and Tingling,
and revolted or revivaledfor a little while in the sea of Mongoloid tribes, then extincted on the land of North China.
Their relations in Western Region, some remained their tradition as Tochars, some changed to mixed groups,
like Tingling, but at last all of them were mixed.
Actually the Indians are a mixture of Aryans (also a Nordic Caucasian)and proto-Indians.
And Turks are mixture of Nordic Caucasians and other races including East Asians.
So Indians and Turks are all result races,but not ancient races.
Like Americans, after thousands of years, you would see Americans have the same looking like Indians or
Iranians, There would be few pure Nodics or Negroes. But would you say there's no pure Nodics or Negroes
in 'ancient'(now) America?
India has a three thousand years of mixture , but America has only two hundred years.

Earlier we trace, fewer races were mixed. more pure racial people could we find,
no matter in America, India, or East Turkestan.

The wusun were described to have red hair and green eyes and there were theories that they are related to today's Dutch. I presume that the Tocharians were more simialr to the Europeans than the Indo-Iranians.

The modern Mongolian (Khalkh) word for "person" is not */hun/, but rather /hyn/, i.e. hün (like the "u" in French "lune" meaning "moon" or like the "ü" in Mandarin Chinese 绿 lü or 女 nü). This is fairly close to the ancient pronunciation of the Chinese character 匈, as in 匈奴.


Many ethnic groups call themselves by the word for "person" or "people" in their own language, e.g. the Ainus of Japan (/ajnu/ = aynu means "a person; a human being" in their language), the Numic peoples (i.e. Shoshone-related peoples) of the southwestern United States (e.g. Western Shoshone /nïwï/ "Newe people, i.e. Shoshone people"), the Munda peoples of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh (e.g. Ho language /hoo/ "person, people; the Ho people"), Inuit/Eskimo language "inuit" meaning "people," and so forth; the list could go on and on. In fact, calling one's own ethnic group "people" or "real people" or "human beings" is probably the most common method of deriving an endonym/autonym.

They could have called themselves 'hun'/'hyn' as well. My main point was just that Arabs and Sogdians, the peoples with big beards, were not known as Hu in Qin-Han times. Lin-Hu apparently is a short form of the full name Danlin Hu, according to Ma Changshou's analysis, and they may have been related to the Xiongnu. The Dong-Hu are believed by some scholars to have been so called only because they were east of the original Hu, i.e. the Xiongnu. The traditional idea that they only started calling themselves Xianbi and Wuwan/Wuhuan (from the names of mountains) after being defeated by the Xiongnu is also doubtful, because there are already occurrences of the term Xianbi (or its variants Xipi and Shibi) in pre-Qin texts, referring to a kind of belt hook introduced from the northern steppe. So the 'Dong-Hu' may not actually have called themselves Dong-Hu at all.

Anyway, I am not sure if you wil find any description of the Xiongnu or Xianbi as having bushy beards.



What evidence do you have for this? Ruan Xian had a Xianbi concubine, and so did Sima Rui, but neither of them is described as Murong.



This is a well known case, but as I mentioned above, Sima Shao's mother (Sima Rui's concubine) is never described as either Murong or Duan. She is only said to come from the Yan-Dai region 燕代. Since Yan was associated with the Murong and Dai was associated with the Tuoba, how can we tell if she was Murong or Tuoba or neither?



Here are some examples of 'handsome or tall' Tuoba aristocrats:
Tuoba Ta 他, nephew of the emperor Tuoba Gui - 身長八尺，美姿貌
Tuoba Luan 鸞, nephew of the emperor Tuoba Jun - 身長八尺
Tuoba/Yuan Shu 樹, nephew of the emperor Tuoba/Yuan Hong 宏 - 美姿貌
Tuoba/Yuan Xiang 詳, brother of Tuoba/Yuan Hong - 美姿容
Tuoba/Yuan Yi 懌, son of Tuoba/Yuan Hong - 美姿貌

Of course, there were also ugly, short, or dark-skinned ones:
Tuoba/Yuan Rong 融, grand-nephew of the emperor Tuoba Jun - 貌甚短陋
Tuoba/Yuan Qin 欽, nephew of Tuoba Jun - 色尤黑，故時人號為黑面僕射

Now, if all the Tuoba were short, ugly, and dark, don't you think the looks of these two guys would not have been worthy of comment at all? I much prefer to say that the Tuoba had a mix of tall and short, handsome and ugly, dark and light-skinned people, as well as a large majority of people of average height, looks, and complexion - just like other Asian ethnic groups today.



Which text is this from?

That is correct...

Those bodies were only 1,000 years old.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1387123/posts


But at the time that area was not part of China. The Tocharians did trade with the Chinese and Indians...that is well known and there were two major groups of them who spoke related (but not the same language)...however, as I said...I have seen no evidence of Nordic like people who lived in Mongolia...or North of China proper.

To my knowledge the Tocharians were the furthest West any people who looked like that lived (in large groups) and as i said, and you can look up on wiki, Tocharian was an isolate in that it was an Indo-European language, that was a centum language, much closer to European languages (Latin, Germanic, Greek), not to Satem languages of of the Indo-Iranic.

We have never found population of Indo-Iranics who were blond. or appeared Nordic. The only Satem languages where people look like that are the Slavs. It would be like finding a Sino-Tibetan language in Afghanistan and it was more related to the Wu Dialect group of Chinese and no other langauge around it was and the closest of the group were dialects of Tibetans.
It would be odd.


I would Caucasion about "pure racial groups".

What you see in America is white Nordics from the British Isle and blacks from West Africa, both extremes from relatively isolated regions historically.

If the appearance of people in the world appear in clines, I'm not sure you can say that Nordics are "pure", they just have a more extreme phenotype. I don't believe in purity, genetic tells us there is no such thing, what you have is a slow progression of features from one region to the other. The only time you don't see this is where the land has been blocked by mountains, seas, deserts, but even in those areas (like North Africa and Central Asia) you still see intermediate groups and I don't believe that they just appeared recently...I do know in Egypt you can see these type of mixtures throughout the historical record.

If you really want to talk about "ancient races" what did people look like when they left Africa...then what did they look like when 20 thousand years later, and then 40 thousand years later?

As I said, and as is on this board, even 12 thousand years ago there were little to no blonds or blue eyed people, no people with very light skin, ON EARTH.

This is all recent, as genetic data shows us. Red Hair is slightly younger than blond, so there were definately no red heads, even 10 K years ago.

I think many of these "pure races" were a work in progress.

I don't think even 5,000 years ago you could go to Europe and find a lot of Nordic looking people outside the Baltic region...and it takes time for gene flow to reach various areas, especially considered that people lived in small groups. The largest human population centers at the time were in the Middle East, China, India, and Egypt. The other areas were populated but relatively sparsely.

Like I said...I find it very hard to believe there were large populations of Noridic looking people at that point in history North of China. Could there have been some scattered bands? Sure. Could there have been groups of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who were anywhere near rivals of China in population? No, I seriously doubt that.





What Turks? Most Turks are a mix of Mongoloid people, Persian peoples, and further West...even Mediterranean Arabs and Europeans. Not much Nordic in that, I'm sorry. I'm never seen genetic test that show anything different.

When Turks expanded into Central Asia, through Persia into Eastern Europe they pretty much displaced Persian related people (and some Greek no doubt). The further you go from Mongolia the less Turks there were who went. In Turkey today most people are not descendant from the original Turks, (like most Egyptians are not Gulf Arabs) but they were acculturated.

Groups like the Tartars in Eastern Europe are mostly Nordic Slav with a small input of original Turk. I think the majority of Turks are not from Nordics, sorry.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html




You said:



Aryans were obviously from or related to Iran and their language is closest to Iranians, they are not nordic.

Warhead:

The Tocharians having red hair would likely make them more related to Celts than Germanics like the Dutch, don't forget that Celts are from Central Europe and lived all the way West to Spain and all the way North to the UK before being displaced by Romans and later Germans.

I'm sorry before I start believing there were Nordic whites living in Gansu in large numbers at an early period as you suggest I would need to see more genetic and anthropological data, a poem is not good enough, that is a very controversial position.

Another issue I would raise is that China has a long history of acculterating barbarian tribes into the Han majority. You can see in Chinese history that many Tungustic, Mongol, and Turkic peoples have been absorbed into the Han from the North...other groups have been absorbed from the South...this is well documented.

There have been many genetic test of Chinese people and to my knowledge there is no significant European input into the Chinese population. There is slightly more, but not substantial European input into Mongolians, most of what you see their is from the mother's side (mtDNA).

It strikes me as odd, given the history of China, that if there was a signfiicant population (like a kingdom) of "whites" to China's north during the Waring States Period or to the West of China proper (during that time period) that they leave little to no genetic trace.

The biggest change in Chinese population, as one woudl expect is from North to South in genes, due to the absorption of (mostly) non-Han females into Han society. There is no significant East to West cline.

Han Mtdna

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlere...gi?artid=384943

http://www.biodiversityforum.com/archive/i...p5?t-28417.html


Han Y Chromsone

http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/chi...mosome-testing/

If you want to know what mtdna groups are prevelant in what groups go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitocho..._DNA_haplogroup

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

If you have other information I would like to see it.

The only explaination would likely be ethnic cleansing/genocide or they just all left the area and went West...