DNA to Test Theory of Roman Village in China

Reverse Gear writes "Many of the inhabitants of a lonely village in north western China seems to have distinctive western features. An old theory from the 50s suggests that a Roman legion lost in what is now Iran in the year 53BC lost their commanding officer. They traveled east, so the legend goes, working as mercenaries until they were caught by the Chinese 17 years later. The Chinese described them as using a 'fish-scale formation', which could be a reference to the well-known Roman phalanx technique called the 'tortoise'. The remainder of the legion, it is suggested, may have intermarried with the villagers in Liqian. Scientists are now trying to verify the fascinating theory by testing the DNA of the inhabitants of the Chinese village."

Comments

Re:Unclear

[pixiepaws]

Check out a book called "Black Horse Odyssey" by David Harris (isbn 1-862452-270-8) it was first published in 1991 by the Wakefield Press. The Roman troops in question were the remnants of a Roman army led by Crassus (the guy who finally wacked Sparticus) that was defeated by the Parthians in 53BC. A portion of the captives were transported to the Sogdian Rock (a fort taken by Alexander the Great many years before). Sometime later a Chinese army entered that part of the world and captured the Rock but they were impressed with the Romans fighting ability (the fish scale formation) and they took 280 or so of em back to China where they ended up on frontier duty for the Chinese. David Harris was put onto the case when he saw some images of come Chinese military art that was done in the style of Roman art. Also the buildings in the area are proportioned after from practice rather than Chinese.

Re:Not the first indication of Europeans in China.

[arivanov]

Not surprising.

The outer Mongolia is the region to which every single major Eurasian human migration can be traced. Before DNA techniques, language techniques and historical references have been used to trace these migrations.

Most of that has now been confirmed using DNA. There was a number of waves going as far back as the Dorian invasion which overthrew the bronze age greek civilisations and established what 500 years later became the golden age greece. This was followed by gotts, westgotts, barbarians, huns, bulgarians, etc. All of them displaced from outer mongolia a few centuries before they ended up in Europe.

The early waves were speaking indo-european languages and with distinct caucasian appearance. The last ones (huns and pra-bulgarians) were speaking languages from the Turk language group and were of mongoloid appearance.

So finding a blond or even a redhead in mongolia is not suprising. After all Chengis Khan was a redhead.