The Tarim Mummies

The Tarim Mummies
Author: J. P. Mallory
Publisher:
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780500283721

Preserved in the Täklimakan desert sands of China lay the well preserved remains of a people who settled in the Tarim Basin four thousand years ago. This book forms the first comprehensive study of the mummies, their clothing and physiology, and also speculates on their identity. The possible contenders for the origins of these people and their linguistic background are discussed and the authors conclude with the rather controversial claim that these in fact represent the first Europeans in China. A most interesting and important book.

Mummies Of Urumchi

Mummies Of Urumchi
Author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2000-05-02
Genre: Design
ISBN: 9780393320190

An absorbing exploration of the mysterious, perfectly preserved Caucasian mummies of western China--an informative unveiling of an ancient and exotic world. 16 pp. of color photos. 50 drawings. Author lectures.

The Mummy Congress

The Mummy Congress
Author: Heather Pringle
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2001-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786871865

Mummies, experts, and breaking science revealed in journalist Pringle's fascinating dive into a little-known arena of human studies. Perhaps the most eccentric of all scientific meetings, the World Congress on Mummy Studies brings together mummy experts from all over the globe and airs their latest findings. Who are these scientists, and what draws them to this morbid yet captivating field? The Mummy Congress, written by acclaimed science journalist Heather Pringle, examines not just the world of mummies, but also the people obsessed with them.

The Handbook of Mummy Studies

The Handbook of Mummy Studies
Author: Dong Hoon Shin
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 1171
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789811533532

Owing to their unique state of preservation, mummies provide us with significant historical and scientific knowledge of humankind’s past. This handbook, written by prominent international experts in mummy studies, offers readers a comprehensive guide to new understandings of the field’s most recent trends and developments. It provides invaluable information on the health states and pathologies of historic populations and civilizations, as well as their socio-cultural and religious characteristics. Addressing the developments in mummy studies that have taken place over the past two decades – which have been neglected for as long a time – the authors excavate the ground-breaking research that has transformed scientific and cultural knowledge of our ancient predecessors. The handbook investigates the many new biotechnological tools that are routinely applied in mummy studies, ranging from morphological inspection and endoscopy to minimally invasive radiological techniques that are used to assess states of preservation. It also looks at the paleoparasitological and pathological approaches that have been employed to reconstruct the lifestyles and pathologic conditions of ancient populations, and considers the techniques that have been applied to enhance biomedical knowledge, such as craniofacial reconstruction, chemical analysis, stable isotope analysis and ancient DNA analysis. This interdisciplinary handbook will appeal to academics in historical, anthropological, archaeological and biological sciences, and will serve as an indispensable companion to researchers and students interested in worldwide mummy studies.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean
Author: Barry W. Cunliffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 541
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199689172

The story of the peoples of Eurasia, from the birth of farming to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. An immense historical panorama set on a huge continental stage, this is also the story of how humans first started building the global system we know today.

The Prehistory of the Silk Road

The Prehistory of the Silk Road
Author: E. E. Kuzmina
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2015-02-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0812292332

In ancient and medieval times, the Silk Road was of great importance to the transport of peoples, goods, and ideas between the East and the West. A vast network of trade routes, it connected the diverse geographies and populations of China, the Eurasian Steppe, Central Asia, India, Western Asia, and Europe. Although its main use was for importing silk from China, traders moving in the opposite direction carried to China jewelry, glassware, and other exotic goods from the Mediterranean, jade from Khotan, and horses and furs from the nomads of the Steppe. In both directions, technology and ideologies were transmitted. The Silk Road brought together the achievements of the different peoples of Eurasia to advance the Old World as a whole. The majority of the Silk Road routes passed through the Eurasian Steppe, whose nomadic people were participants and mediators in its economic and cultural exchanges. Until now, the origins of these routes and relationships have not been examined in great detail. In The Prehistory of the Silk Road, E. E. Kuzmina, renowned Russian archaeologist, looks at the history of this crucial area before the formal establishment of Silk Road trade and diplomacy. From the late Neolithic period to the early Bronze Age, Kuzmina traces the evolution of the material culture of the Steppe and the contact between civilizations that proved critical to the development of the widespread trade that would follow, including nomadic migrations, the domestication and use of the horse and the camel, and the spread of wheeled transport. The Prehistory of the Silk Road combines detailed research in archaeology with evidence from physical anthropology, linguistics, and other fields, incorporating both primary and secondary sources from a range of languages, including a vast accumulation of Russian-language scholarship largely untapped in the West. The book is complemented by an extensive bibliography that will be of great use to scholars.

The Cultures of Ancient Xinjiang, Western China: Crossroads of the Silk Roads

The Cultures of Ancient Xinjiang, Western China: Crossroads of the Silk Roads
Author: Alison Betts
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2019-12-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789694078

One of the least known but culturally rich and complex regions located at the heart of Asia, Xinjiang was a hub for the Silk Roads, serving international links between cultures to the west, east, north and south. Trade, artefacts, foods, technologies, ideas, beliefs, animals and people traversed the glacier covered mountain and desert boundaries.

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World
Author: J. P. Mallory
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 756
Release: 2006-08-24
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0199287910

The authors introduce Proto-Indo-European describing its construction and revealing the people who spoke it between 5,500 and 8,000 years ago. Using archaeological evidence and natural history they reconstruct the lives, passions, culture, society and mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Forgotten Worlds

Forgotten Worlds
Author: Patrick Chouinard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1591438926

An examination of the mythological, historical, and archaeological evidence for lost civilizations throughout the world • Explores unexplained mysteries such as the Caucasian mummies of China, the pyramids of Caral in Peru, and the genetically unique X-woman of Siberia • Examines evidence of lost, ancient civilizations in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, including extensive investigation into Atlantis • Shows that Siberia and the Amazon may have been cradles of humanity before Africa Over and over again, mainstream views of early history--which state that the first civilizations arose around 3500 BCE--are plagued by evidence of much older civilizations, evidence ranging from artifacts and inexplicable remains to pyramids and ubiquitous myths that clearly speak of great empires prior to the rise of the Sumerian city states and pharaonic Egypt. Viewing Atlantis and its many related myths as a metaphor for a long-lost global civilization, Patrick Chouinard explores the mythological, cultural, religious, and archaelogical evidence for many forgotten civilizations in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He addresses unexplained mysteries from around the world, such as Caucasian mummies found in China, the pyramids of Caral in Peru, the “hobbit” remains on Flores Island, the giant heads of Easter Island, the lost legacy of Lemuria, the ideology and occult mysticism behind Nazi theory, and the genetically unique X-woman of Siberia. He also examines evidence of ancient alien visits and other supernatural phenomena in the distant past. Using recent archaeological findings, he shows that Siberia and the Amazon may have been cradles of humanity millennia before Africa. Sounding the call to continue searching ancient, remote, and formerly forbidden regions for lost cultures and genetic root races, Chouinard offers a new chronology for the emergence of human life and civilization as well as a new mechanism for how and why societies and species change over time. By finding lost peoples and their forgotten worlds, we can truly begin to understand the human race and learn from its long history.

The Origins of the Irish

The Origins of the Irish
Author: J. P. Mallory
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0500771405

An essential new history of ancient Ireland and the Irish, written as an engrossing detective story About eighty million people today can trace their descent back to the occupants of Ireland. But where did the occupants of the island themselves come from and what do we even mean by “Irish” in the first place? This is the first major attempt to deal with the core issues of how the Irish came into being. J. P. Mallory emphasizes that the Irish did not have a single origin, but are a product of multiple influences that can only be tracked by employing the disciplines of archaeology, genetics, geology, linguistics, and mythology. Beginning with the collision that fused the two halves of Ireland together, the book traces Ireland’s long journey through space and time to become an island. The origins of its first farmers and their monumental impact on the island is followed by an exploration of how metallurgists in copper, bronze, and iron brought Ireland into increasingly wider orbits of European culture. Assessments of traditional explanations of Irish origins are combined with the very latest genetic research into the biological origins of the Irish.