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I'm not in agreement with the viewpoint expressed in the article Interactions between China and the Turkic peoples that Turks were originally a Mongoloid people.

The ethnic composition of the "Wu Hu" (The five foreign tribes that invaded China during the Jin Dynasty) remains much riddle. But according to Chinese ancient historical annals, the Xiongnu are a tribe with red hair and blue eyes like the "Wushun". And, Jie, which was a branch of Xiongnu, was also described as having high nose bridges, and "deep" eyes. After the collapse of their rule of the Han, the Jie people was distinguished easily because of their Caucasian features and slaughtered (more than 200,000 victims). The historical work of the later dynasties also described the remaining Xiongnu people as having "long nose" and "yellow hair". Until the Tang dynasty, the "Ji Hu", who were the offspring of the royal Xiongnu people, were still called "Hu tou Han se" (Hu head and Han tougue) which means they adopted the Chinese tongue, but still retained "foreign" features. Much other evidence can support the standpoint that Xiongnu are Caucasians, I don't need to illustrate further.

Some people believe the Xiongnu are a Mongoliod race, because Roman historians said the Hun people who invaded Europe had "brown skin, stocky bodies and slanting eyes". But, actually, the Hun who invaded Europe 5th century were not the descendant of the Xiongnu. The contemporary scholars affirm they are the same tribe just because the pronunciations of "Hun" and "Xiongnu" are approximately the same. And there is some relationship between their languages. I also want to point out that around the 5th and 6th century, there was another branch of "Hun" which ravaged the Persia and Northwest India; that branch was called the "White Hun". The Persian historian said that they were white and their features were different from "Hun". Hence, it seemed that they were also Caucasian.

Now, let's come to the Xianbei. Many people noticed that, in history books, the Xianbei people were called "Bai Lu" means "white invader (thief)". And in the Great Work Zhi zhi tong jian, I found the following story--The Emperor Of Eastern Jin, Jin Ming Di (Shima Shao), had yellow beard and hair, because his mother was a Xianbei female. Once he went to inspect his troops without notice, and his warriors all thought he was Xianbei and chased him as an enemy. The folk songs at that time said, "Huang tou Xianbei jin Luoyang" - "Xianbei with yellow head enters Luoyang". Xianbei is described with "yellow head" and it is quite possible that "yellow head" referred to their yellow hair and beard. Xianbei is an alliance of tribes; there might also be some Mongoliod tribes in it, but the Caucasian elements were more obvious, since all Hans paid attention to it.

The contemporary Chinese people don't dwell on the ethnic origin of their nation. Most of them believe they are simply of Mongoliod race. That's not a correct concept. The racial intermix in China began before any dynasty, in the Neolithic age. The skulls unearthed in the relics of Banpo Xi'an revealed Caucasoid traits, more specifically, the Nordic Caucasoid. The Banpo civilian used to be Nordic and Mongoloid hybrid (like the Finns today). We all know the Banpo is the representative civilization of the Northern China Neolithic civilizations. It is possible that many other northern Chinese civilizations in that time were created by Caucasoid or mingled people.

The Hemudu in Zhejiang is the representative Neolithic civilization in southern China. After scientists measured the skulls found there, they found that they have Negroid characteristics! One renowned Chinese anthropologist stated in his work that "According to the numerous skeletons of Indo-European people unearthed in China and the features of the southern Chinese people today, the Chinese nation can't be classified solely into the Mongoloid race."

Earlier, many Chinese anthropologists also clarified that it's completely wrong to say the ancient skeletons discovered in China belong to the same race. Another famous event at the end of the 20th century also supports the idea--some biochemistry researchers analyzed the DNA from the mummies in some ancient tombs in Shangdong province, and made a conclusion that these DNA correspond that of the European people. Other research discovered that the genetic makeup of northern Chinese is closer to the Caucasoids than that of the southern Chinese.

The origin of Zhou, the third dynasty of ancient China, is also doubtful. The time of the establishment of that dynasty is not far from the time of Aryan Expansion. The chariot used by the soldiers of Zhou resemble the chariot used by Aryan invaders to India! Moreover, the ancient Chinese work written by Mengzi said that, Zhou Wen Wang (the emperor of Zhou) was of the people of the "western barbarians". It's quite possible that a branch of Aryan entered China at the time of the migrations of Aryans. The people of the preceding dynasty, the Shang (1766-1100 B.C.), were described as having dark skin and wooly hair.

Neither the Zhou or the Shang were true empires (the first Chinese empire was the Qin). At that time, many different kingdoms existed in what is today's China. The kings of these nations swore allegiance to a common "emperor" (the reigning king of the preeminent kingdom), but retained their political automony. Unlike China today, which is a single political entity, pre-QIn China was a loose union of different nations (which scholars consider dukedoms or kingdoms).

According to Chinese legend, the despotic last king of Shang (the acknowledged emperor), invited the crown prince of Zhou, one of the kingdoms in the Chinese union, to visit his kingdom. Instigated by his evil concubine, who was angry with the Zhou prince for rejecting her advances, the emperor Shang Zhou Wang ordered the prince of Zhou to be ground into meat paste, made into meat patties and sent back to the Zhou kingdom for his father's consumption. Outraged, the younger brother of the murdered prince took the story of Shang atrocities to other kingdoms in the Chinese union and mobilized a multi-national rebellion to attack the Shang kingdom. Shang citizens tired of the arbitrary cruelties their monarch visited on innocent Shang people also joined the rebellion.

After the Shang was overthrown, the Zhou was acknowledged as the pre-eminent kingdom and the younger Zhou prince became the Zhou emperor. These fantastic stories are retold in the legendary Fengshen Yanyi - "How Heroes were Deified". The Fengshen Yanyi had even captured imaginations beyond China and was made into a Japanese animation series.

Some even cast doubts on the origin of the Qin Dynasty, which was the dynasty which followed Zhou. At least, there were some Aryan tribes which were not absorbed by local Chinese still existing in western and central China at the time of the late Zhou dynasty. It was recorded that the king of Qin attacked the ruler of Zhou with some barbarous tribes but failed. That event happened a few hundred years BC, at that very time the Bactoria in Central Asia was conquered by 4 Nomadic Aryan tribes. The origins of 3 of these tribes were definite. Now, some historians reckon the 4th tribe might be the Aryan tribe that moved back to Central Asia.

Until Han dynasty, the "Yue zhi" (pronounced as 'rou zhi'), an Aryan Tribe, still lived in Ganshu province, and sometimes the track of their activity can be found in northern China. And the region east of Tianshan (in the center of East Turkestan) was populated by Saka (a branch of Aryan, whose language belongs to the Iranian group, known as 'Scythians' to Westerners and 'Sai Zhong' to the Chinese).

Now, many scholars believe that many "Yi" and "Di" (the diverse barbarian tribes) recorded in early Chinese dynasties were Caucasoids. The origin of the Xiongnu can probably be traced back to Scythians because records revealed that their customs were the same.

Caucasoids also inhabited other parts of East Asia since early times. In Japan, the aboriginal Ainu people was finally confessed as the ancestor of current Japanese nation. The Ainu were a Caucasoid/Negroid tribe which moved to the Japanese islands more than 20,000 years ago, while the Mongoloids reached Japan only about 10,000 years ago. They intermixed and yielded the contemporary Japanese people. The same procedure of intermixing also took place in Korea.

The great ancient Chinese culture was a furnace to integrate all races. The Mongoloid types can't be regarded as the only "local Chinese". Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid elements created the grand Chinese civilization together.

2001	bb and friend

Comment 1

The simple answer is, not surprisingly, that no ancient human populations look like their modern descendants. For example, Cro-Magnons were generally platyrrhinic (flat-nosed), dolichocephalic (long-headed), and prognathous (jaw jutting forward). Modern Europeans are generally leptorrhinic, mesocephalic, and orthognathous. The reason is different selective pressures at different times.

Also, the old three-race system of Cuvier and Gobineau pretty much only applies to Europe, the west coast of Africa, and the east coast of Eurasia, and only in fairly recent times. With Cuvier, it was related to the sons of Noah; with Gobineau, it was so that there would be no gradiation (and thus no chance of common ancestry, in pre-Darwinian times).

Today, craniometrics is considered as useful as phrenology.

J, 11/2003