Northwest China Had Bronze Production Early On

We know the area around the Tarim Basin where the world-famous Urumchi mummies and others were discovered might not always have been a desert, because some of the grave yards were surrounded with wooden stockades, and many of the discovered graves were covered with wood. (See book cover, below, showing one such location).

In a desert, there would have been no wood. The most obvious answer seems to be that the people who became the mummies were there and were buried before the area became a desert. But then, how did they become mummies? As I understand it, the current theory says that the mummies were naturally dessicated by the sere surroundings. It would have been a process akin to what happened to bodies buried in the sand in pre-dynastic Egypt, before elaborate embalming and mummification rituals were created.


But, a climate that would have supported enough trees to supply the wood necessary to construct the graveyards would imply a climate that was not conducive to the formation of dessicated mummies. So, I am at a loss.

You can trace out the ancient northern route of the Silk Road by following the towns: Turpan, Korla, Urumchi, Kuqa, Aksa, Kashgar. Between the northern route and the southern route (which was a killer, with water stops few and far between, but the shorter route), a vast nothingness, quite visible even today on the modern maps.

This article, which presents important information about the early history of bronze smelting in Gansu Province in northwest of China, also indicates that research reveals that the climate once supported trees and farming, and that the people only left after the destruction of all of the trees, when the land turned to desert (I envision a process akin to what caused the Dust Bowl in the 1930's in the USA).

The ancient gateway city of Dunhuang, on the famed Silk Road (c. 200 BCE - 220 CE), which was travelled some 2000 years after the mummies of Urumchi were buried and 3000 years after the Beauty of Loulan was buried, was the last stop for travelers westward to stock up on supplies before venturing forth across the vast horrible stretch of the Taklamakan Desert. It is located on the western border of Ganshu Province.

China had bronze early on
Thursday, 03 December 2009
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation

ANSTO research has shown that an area of desert in north-western China was once a thriving Bronze Age manufacturing and agricultural site. The new findings may help shed light on the origins and development of the earliest applications of Bronze Age technology.

Dating, using ANSTO’s precision techniques, was used to identify the age of seeds, slag, copper ore and charcoal at two sites. The findings show the material is up to 3700 years old, but that smelting was still being carried out as recently as 1300 years ago.

The research indicates bronze production may have begun as early as 2135 BC and that the modern mine location - Baishantang at Dingxin - was possibly the historical source of copper ore for manufacturing. ANSTO’s Professor John Dodson conducted the research in conjunction with scientists from the State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology in China. A photo of the study site is on the November issue of the journal “Quaternary Research”.

“This research takes us a step closer to discovering the origins and development of bronze manufacturing in China,” said Professor Dodson. “Further research will look at whether bronze technology was invented in several places around the world independently, or whether the technology was transferred from a single centre of origin.”

“The aim of the study was to determine possible sources of ore and evidence of bronze production through analysis of artefacts (with copper and arsenic content) including analysing samples of slag and copper ore from two archaeological sites known as Ganggangwa and Huoshiliang in northwestern Gansu Province,“ he said.

The research used lead and strontium isotopic analysis to identify and age ornaments, knives, rings, hemispherical objects and spearheads.

The team discovered substantial areas of woody vegetation around the sites which is now dominated by sand dunes. The Bronze Age people of the Gansu area were farmers who planted cereals such as wheat and practiced animal husbandry. Horse and sheep bones are common. It is believed they may have abandoned the region when wood was exhausted and desertification took over.

Ethnic Unrest In China Continues - with Fall-Out

It doesn't take a genius to predict that we haven't heard the last of this, and the inept response of the Han Chinese majority is only adding fuel to the fire. Darlings, trust me, firing a party underling to cover up for the gross incompetence of a politburo member isn't going to cut it in this situation in the long run (and it may not be as long as they think). China a Ousts Top City Official in Wake of Unrest By KEITH BRADSHER and XIYUN YANG Published: September 5, 2009 HONG KONG — The top Communist official in Urumqi in western China was dismissed on Saturday as a large deployment of the military police appeared to have brought a measure of peace to the city after two days of large street protests. Li Zhi, the party secretary of Urumqi, lost his post, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday evening. He became the most senior person to be removed since ethnic tensions erupted there in rioting in July. Beijing officials also sent to Urumqi a special medical inspection unit from the People’s Liberation Army to investigate reports that people had been stabbed with needles. It is somewhat unusual for China’s leaders to replace a senior local official so quickly after protests — in this case, while large deployments of armed police officers are still blocking intersections in Urumqi and most shops are still closed. The Beijing leadership has often sought to avoid giving the impression of giving in to public pressure. The removal of Mr. Li “shows that Xinjiang is viewed as a strategic region where there cannot be the kind of social protests we have seen in recent days,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. The latest protests were notable for including large crowds of people who specifically called on Friday for the removal of Mr. Li’s boss, Wang Lequan, the powerful party secretary of restive Xinjiang region, of which Urumqi is the capital. Mr. Wang, a member of the Politburo believed to be a close ally of President Hu Jintao, has run the nominally autonomous region for 15 years and is famous within China for taking a hard line toward minorities. “They want to protect Wang Lequan, because firing a Politburo member would send a message they do not want to send,” namely that hard-line policies toward ethnic minorities can be questioned, said Li Cheng, the research director of the Brookings Institution’s China Center. Rest of article. I think the unintentionally funniest line in this article is the one about the special medical inspection unit! And just what are they going to say - even if they uncover the truth that probably 99.9% of the people who were reportedly pricked with needles weren't pricked by needles at all! You can be sure they aren't going to tell the truth, even if they wish to. Urumchi is, of course, famous for red-haired, blue-eyed mummies found buried in the desert outside the city proper in the 1970's, but rumored to have existed for thousands of years before then. NOVA did a special on them a few years back, you can probably find it online. Western scholars have yet to receive free access to the mummies, which are maintained under, I am given to believe, not very good conditions to their conservation. The mummies are a delicate subject in modern China as they predate the Han Chinese presence in northwestern China by a couple thousand years at least, and maybe more. I understand the oldest Urumchi mummy burials are some 4,000 years old. The Han Chinese did not establish a presence in the area until the Han Dynasty c. 220 BCE - 220 CE, with the establishment of the gate-way city of Dunshuang on the Silk Road. And, to be fair, not all of the mummies uncovered had red hair and blue eyes, but I believe it has been pretty much established by other archaeological evidence that many of the Urumchi mummies are related to people who originated far to the west and may have migrated east in one or more waves over a couple thousand years, beginning in 2500 BCE or so. Something the Han Chinese Communist rulers do not wish to acknowledge. Some of the mummies were buried in woven plaids which I understand are remarkably similar to the clan plaids worn by the people who eventually settled in northern Scotland. Some of the mummies (female and male), possibly shamans, tentatively identified as such because of the grave goods with which they were buried, were uncovered wearing tall pointed hats made of felt - similar to how we depict "witches" in the west today (think of the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 movie classic "The Wizard of Oz") - in addition to small woven cloth or felt bags filled with medicinal herbs (including cannabis) and herbs prized for their magical qualities, as well as other talismans. If my memory serves, a few of the 'shamans' were buried with colored throwing sticks -- perhaps for use in divination? The photo above is an example of one of the tall felt hats recovered from a mummy burial. Rather reminds me of that talking hat in the Harry Potter movies... So, the history of non-Han people in the Tarim Basin area is long-standing with links back to peoples of non-Han Chinese stock is ancient. An informative article, with several photographs, including the heart-breaking image of the red-haired infant, gives a good overview.

Added to the Recommended Reading List

"The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype," by Erich Neumann (translated by Ralph Manheim) [Note: this is a soft-cover edition, ISBN 0-691-01780-8) and contains a separate section entirely devoted to photographs, 185 pages long, in addition to the illustrations and photographs integrated into the text. This is a great resource.] "The Language of the Goddess," with foreword by Joseph Campbell, by Marija Gimbutas [Note: packed with illustrations and photographs on nearly every page.] "Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times," by Elizabeth Wayland Barber -- I haven't got my hands on this one yet, I'm buying it from Alibris.com today :) Wayland Barber wrote the fabulous book "The Mummies of Urumchi," also on the Recommended Reading List.