Griffin stared at Jun with open skepticism.
Apparently interpreting the scrivener’s reaction, Jun protested, “Please, allow me to elaborate. We have much more evidence than the pythia’s vision for making such claims. One has only to look at the Tarim Basin mummies or the Beauty of Loulan.”
“Oh yes,” Griffin said. “I recall reading about those finds. It seems a large number of perfectly preserved specimens were discovered in the Tarim Basin in the northwestern part of China. They were very tall Caucasians, some wearing woven plaid cloth resembling Scottish tartans. The most ancient of the mummies are four thousand years old.”
“The government resisted disclosing information about these mummies because they feared it would stir up controversy among the Uyghurs.”
“Uyghurs?” Cassie asked cautiously.
“From Xinjiang,” Rou mumbled under her breath.
Instantly everyone transferred their attention to her, and she blushed.
“You may as well continue,” her grandfather prompted gently.
The girl tried to form a few words, but no sound came out. It seemed that the direct scrutiny of the group was too much for her. With a stricken look, Rou mutely appealed to Jun for rescue.
“Very well,” the trove keeper conceded. “Xinjiang is in the northwest corner of China. The Uyghurs are a Turkic race who migrated there a long time ago. Many of them have light-colored eyes and hair. Some even have European features. The Uyghurs feel that their province shouldn’t be part of China at all because the inhabitants are not ethnically Chinese. They’ve been staging government protests for years. Needless to say, the discovery of the Tarim Basin mummies wasn’t widely publicized for fear of stirring up a furor in that region all over again. But the Uyghurs offer strong genetic proof that Caucasian tribes have existed along China’s northern and western borders for the past four millennia or more.”
Rou managed to squeak out a few audible words at last. “The Mongols.”
“What have they got to do with this?” The pythia sat forward in her chair.
Jun replied. “As you know, the Great Wall was built to keep out barbarian raiders from the north. These raiders eventually coalesced into the Mongol Empire many centuries later. What most people don’t know is that the Mongols were genetically quite diverse. Chinese historians of the time referred to them as ‘the people with colorful eyes.’”
“That would mean they were Caucasian.” Griffin sounded baffled.
“At least in part,” Jun said. “In fact, Genghis Khan is described as having red hair and green eyes. His wife’s name was Bourtai which means ‘grey-eyed.’ There are many people living in Mongolia today who have Asian features with light hair and eyes. It would appear that when the Caucasian tribes migrated eastward, they didn’t stop in central Asia. They gradually extended their reach to encompass the northern and western borders of China. A smaller number continued southeastward into China itself. Gansu Province, where we are right now, is called the Gansu Corridor because it is the easiest way to reach the Yellow River Valley from central Asia.”
“That means this province acted like a funnel to draw traffic from the steppes,” the pythia concluded. “But I still don’t understand why overlords would have traveled this far east. What was the attraction?”
Jun gave a humorless laugh. “They needed a new group of agriculturalists to exploit.”
Cassie and Griffin exchanged troubled glances before turning their attention back to the trove keeper.
“Hold on,” the pythia objected. “I was told the overlords left the steppes because the grasslands dried out and their herds needed greener pastures.”
“That is only part of the story,” Jun countered. “The grasslands dried out, but the livestock problem wasn’t the main reason for their mass migration out of western Asia. As early as the fourth millennium BCE, the overlords had learned to prey upon the neighboring agricultural population.”
“I never thought of that,” Griffin interjected. “Of course, it makes sense. Before desiccation began, fertile farmland would have existed along the fringes of the steppes. Agricultural communities probably flourished side by side with the nomads.”
“Sadly, the domestication of the horse gave an advantage to the nomads,” Jun said. “Rather than trading peacefully with the farmers as they had done in the past, they swept in and raided the agricultural communities. On horseback, the nomads struck too quickly to be pursued.”
“Nice people,” Cassie said sarcastically. “Except that it’s a bad long-term strategy. I mean, sooner or later the farmers must have gotten fed up with the chronic pillaging and moved away.”
“I believe the nomads developed other tactics to control the farmers,” Jun said. “Various tribes of horsemen would fight each other to claim control of a given agricultural area. The victors would offer to protect the farmers in their territory from other predators in exchange for a share of their crops and other goods.”
“That’s just great,” the pythia remarked. “They invented the stone age version of a protection racket.”
“And gave birth to the exploiter model of overlord culture which has plagued us ever since,” Griffin concluded.
“This state of affairs existed for at least a thousand years before desiccation affected central Asia around 3500 BCE,” Jun said. “Some of the farming communities would have died out from famine after their crops failed year upon year. Others would have moved their communities farther away from the dry grasslands into the mountains and river valleys. This would have made them inaccessible to the overlords whose principal tactic was a speedy attack over flat, open terrain.”
“So, you’re saying the overlords packed it in and went to look for easier targets?” Cassie asked.
“Yes, and this search led them very far from their homeland. We find
