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Archaeology
The Tarim mummies suggest that precursors of these easternmost speakers of an
Indo-European language may have lived in the region of the Tarim Basin from
around 1800 BC until finally they were assimilated by Uyghur Turks in the 9th
century AD.
There is evidence both from the mummies and Chinese writings that many of them
had blonde or red hair and blue eyes[citation needed], characteristics also
found in central asia. This suggests the possibility that they were part of an
early migration of speakers of Indo-European languages that ended in what is now
the Tarim Basin in western China. According to a controversial theory, early
invasions by Turkic speakers may have pushed Tocharian speakers out of the Tarim
Basin and into ancient Sogdian where they became assimilated in the population.
A later group of Tocharians were the Kushans and maybe some iranian tribes of
the Hephthalites whose iranian population also settled in modern Afghanistan,
North-Eastern Iran Usbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkestan while the nomadic
turkish ones where defeated by Bahram Gur and the Gok-Turks who pushed them over
the Hindukush mountains to Sindh (Pakistan) and North-West India.
The Tarim Basin mummies (1800 BC) and the Tocharian texts and frescoes from the
Tarim Basin (AD 800) have been found in the same general geographical area, and
are both connected to an Indo-European origin. The faces on these frescos were
usually vandalized by Muslim iconoclasts since the Middle Ages. The mummies and
the frescoes both point to White types with light eyes and hair color. There is
no evidence that directly connects them however, as no texts were recovered from
the grave sites
Mallory & Mair (2000:294–296, 314–318) argue that the Tocharian languages were
introduced to the Tarim and Turpan basins from the Afanasevo culture to their
immediate north. The Afanasevo culture (c. 3500–2500 BC) displays cultural and
genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the European
steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture
(c. 2000–900 BC) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian
linguistic innovations like satemization.
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