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Roman descendants found in China?
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Pretty fascinating.
Residents of a remote Chinese village are hoping that DNA tests will prove one of history's most unlikely legends — that they are descended from Roman legionaries lost in antiquity.
Scientists have taken blood samples from 93 people living in and around Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi desert, more than 200 miles from the nearest city.
They are seeking an explanation for the unusual number of local people with western characteristics — green eyes, big noses, and even blonde hair — mixed with traditional Chinese features.
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| Sunsnail |
| That would be awesome |
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| Lira |
Migration wasn't a rare thing along the Silk Road, actually. Here's a portrait, found in Central Asia, of an European-looking monk talking to an Eastern-Asian-looking monk:
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Cool. That portrait is on the Wikipedia page for Tocharians, a rather mysterious group of people who lived in China but spoke an Indo-European language.
I love history, anthropology, and historical linguistics. |
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| mezzir |
| he looks russian:conf: |
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| trancepunkk |
thats not out of this world. china was a very important country back in the day (a very far away day lol) in terms of their wealth and power.
but to be traced back to these actual group of roman legionarres would be pretty ing cool |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
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 :wtf: |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by mezzir
he looks russian:conf: |
Though the original Slavs were probably Scandinavian, the local tribes were finno-urgic, asian, turkic etc on top of that RUssia was under the mongol yoke for a couple of centuries so our gene pool is pretty mixed up... Russians often tend to have both european and slightly asian features. |
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| Aquadyne |
This isn't so far fetched. In 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great waged an 8 year campaign in and around Afghanistan before descending down to India through the Hindu Kush mountains.
They have already found villages in Afghanistan that were built in Greek/Macedonian style some time ago. Granted, Macedonian hoplites are not Roman legionnaires, but as someone pointed out - the Silk Road traversed from Rome all the way to Korea so it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility. It's actually probably very likely.
The real question is why would someone suggest it is Roman legionnaires, rather than Roman civilians. I can see Roman traders easily traversing the Silk Road, but why would their military troops venture so far out into Asia and under whose orders? |
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| Sunsnail |
| quote: | Originally posted by Aquadyne
This isn't so far fetched. In 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great waged an 8 year campaign in and around Afghanistan before descending down to India through the Hindu Kush mountains.
They have already found villages in Afghanistan that were built in Greek/Macedonian style some time ago. Granted, Macedonian hoplites are not Roman legionnaires, but as someone pointed out - the Silk Road traversed from Rome all the way to Korea so it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility. It's actually probably very likely.
The real question is why would someone suggest it is Roman legionnaires, rather than Roman civilians. I can see Roman traders easily traversing the Silk Road, but why would their military troops venture so far out into Asia and under whose orders? |
They actually explain it in the article... |
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| trancepunkk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Aquadyne
This isn't so far fetched. In 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great waged an 8 year campaign in and around Afghanistan before descending down to India through the Hindu Kush mountains.
They have already found villages in Afghanistan that were built in Greek/Macedonian style some time ago. Granted, Macedonian hoplites are not Roman legionnaires, but as someone pointed out - the Silk Road traversed from Rome all the way to Korea so it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility. It's actually probably very likely.
The real question is why would someone suggest it is Roman legionnaires, rather than Roman civilians. I can see Roman traders easily traversing the Silk Road, but why would their military troops venture so far out into Asia and under whose orders? |
umm yea thanku captain obvious ;)
the last part is the bit that is wat people are going to find interesting |
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