Chinese villagers 'descended from Roman soldiers'

[malaise]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8154490/Chinese-villagers-descended-from-Roman-soldiers.html?sms_ss=reddit&at_xt=4cedc8fb39e0e671,0
<snip>
Tests found that the DNA of some villagers in Liqian, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert in north-western China, was 56 per cent Caucasian in origin.

Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harrymount/100049168/roman-blood-runs-through-chinese-and-british-veins/
<snip>
There’s a romantic story in today’s Telegraph about a group of Chinese villagers who claim to have Roman blood. Thus the green eyes of the villager pictured above.

The village is in north-west China, a long way from the outer bounds of the Roman Empire, but still it may well be true. After Marcus Crassus was defeated by the Parthians in 53BC, so the story goes, a group of legionaries headed east, and spawned today’s Romano-Chinese villagers.

For all the romance of the story, I tend to think it might well be true. People don’t move very much unless they’re forced to by war, famine or natural disaster. That’s why you still get a lot of people called Evans in Wales, and McDonald in Scotland; they’ve stayed near the spot where their surnames first emerged half a millennium or more ago.

The further away the original settlement of a new immigrant group – like the Romans in the East or, indeed, in Britain – the less we tend to believe it; particularly if the immigrant group then leaves, as the Romans left Britain in 410AD.

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Fascinating

[theoldman]

1. You can trace Roman's descendants through Germany as they marched North.

These Germans are shorter than other Germans.

[KharmaTrain]

2. Very Plausible...

The Romans were trading with the Indian Sub-Continent and the Silk Road had been a major trading route going back millenium. There's been Chinese jade found in Roman ruins. With such poor communications and lengthy travel it would be easy for someone to travel the trading routes and lose total contact. DNA testing has revolutionized geneology...we're finding out we're a lot more inter-connected than we thought.

Fascinating indeed!

[Recursion]

3. Daqin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daqin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations

The myth of ancient civilizations living in ignorance of each other is just that: a myth.

[KharmaTrain]

4. Not Ignoring...Disconnected...

Not ignorance by any means but they lived in a world far bigger than ours and cultural exchanges were done by many parties. The Wiki article says it best..." However, powerful intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans kept the two Eurasian flanking powers permanently apart and mutual awareness remained low and knowledge fuzzy."

Not long ago I think NatGeo showed how the Greeks and then Romans sailed to India on the yearly tradewinds and at the same time Chinese traders were sailing from the opposite direction. No doubt there were cultural exchanges. An example used was the development of concrete in Chinese building not long after it began to be used widely in the Roman empire.

Definitely a myth, but now we're starting to get some hard evidence.

Cheers...

[Warpy]

5. The one common thread in our species, even more than constant war

over land or silly religions, is that we tend to wander. It's probably the main reason we've survived the constant war.

They've already found Jews and Persians in China. It's no surprise they've also found Romans.

[malaise]

6. Isn't that the truth

We like to travel