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RE: Book Review: "Tibetan Nation," by Warren W. Smith

in #review3 years ago

"showing that the Tukhara were the ancestors of the ones whom the Chinese called "Qiang," who were the ancestors of the Tibetans"
Rather dubious, considering the genetic evidence. R1a & R1b are generally considered to be related to the Indo-European expansion. Both are extremely rare in greater Tibet, ranging from 0 to 8%. & these percentages are more probably related to the classical Uighurs which had some stronger Indo-European admixture. The Tibetan empire of old & the Uighur empire of the time had some conquests back & forth, & that could be the major source of Indo-European DNA in some Tibetan tribes.

I think, it's more likely that the Qiang may very well have been related to the Indo-Europeans (Beckwith makes some linguistic points to that regard), but were not actually the ancestors of Tibetans. Or the Indo-Europeans only formed a very small elite of the Qiang, after having conquered them & before they then expanded again. Either way, not many Indo-Europeans (or their DNA) made it to Tibet.

Haplogroup maps: https://indo-european.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=e355625d5fbe46469cfdc85fce6eb04a
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2019/07/26/the-yamnaya-origins-of-the-tocharian/

Also: Genetic structure of Tibetan populations in Gansu revealed by forensic STR loci

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Archaeology is something I've read more than a few volumes about, and genetics is not. Ergo I'll have to read up on this before I can give an educated commentary on the implications of your links. Admittedly, the only logical migratory path of Indo-Europeans to Tibet would be by way of the Tarim Basin to the north. It is possible that at some point an Indo-European tribe from the north insinuated themselves as the ruling class on the Plateau and superimposed their language over the existing one, but I digress.
My point was not so much to emphasize the theory that they are of Indo-European descent but to say, as a side-note, that there is a marked distinction between Tibetan and Chinese cultural lineage, with very little evidence that the two share even a common ancestor. A great deal of the evidence presented by Smith comes from Christopher Beckwith's the Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, which I presume was the same source you were referring to.
As for Archaeological and Anthropological evidence that the Tibetans are the descendants (or rather, an offshoot) of the Qiang, Smith cites E.G. Pulleybank and Karl Jettmar.

I've only ever read one Beckwith book: 'Empires of the Silk Road'
So, could have been there or on Gene Expression (gnxp.com). The guy who writes it reads & quotes a lot.
Anyway, just a minor point..