Chinese Villagers Rely on DNA Tests to Prove Their Roman Ancestry
The ancestors on my father’s side of the family hail from northeastern China, Shandong, where we are known to be tall and heavyset behaving in a frank, honest, simple, and upright manner. Not too far from the truth! Although my American upbringing has mostly erased the simple aspect.
Given my Chinese background, I was fascinated to learn of the Chinese village of Liqian where some have green eyes, European noses, and blonde hair and are taller than the average Chinese at over 6-feet. It’s believed that they may be descended from Roman soldiers who roamed the region during the first century between 36 and 53BC.
DNA samples have been collected from 93 people in the Liqian area of northwestern China. Villagers only learned recently of their supposed Roman ancestors as genetics research became less tightly controlled. If a connection can be established, it would be a selling point to tourists. I can already imagine people dressed as gladiators roaming the streets of Liqian for photo-ops a la Rome, Italy.
Read more about Richard Spencer’s visit to Liqian, China in the Telegraph.
Photo: mightyjc
Tags: romans, chinese, liqian, china, genetics, genes, dna, ancestry, health
I know the lost roman legion is something real,The DNA questionns is oneof several proof who tell us ,that it happened in another time.
We must be a open mind to understand, that our home , The Earth Planet. is so extensive and far away of nationalism,races,skin color,religion and another things.
We are human ,that we have the Straigth of staying,relation us and to joins us with the people all the world, be chinese,roman,french,american etc
This way on my mind
Romans differed much from both Celts and Germans. Caesar himself remarked on the much larger bodies and the height of Celts and Germans. Romans had dark complexions, dark brown hair, and were short. No Roman writer thought Celts and Germans to have anything in common with Romans, and no Roman thought himself to be “European”. To confirm, read Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” and Tacitus’ “Germania” and “Histories”
The idea of blonde hair and green eyes seems to indeed go against the fact of early Roman physiology. However, there is the group called the Tocharians, who were settled in the Tarim basin yet had extensive travels and trade contacts for a couple thousand years. They had red hair sometimes (as the mummies found in west China attest). Also, various Iranian tribes populated central asia before the huns/turks swept across, and the early Iranians have connections with Indic as well as possibly European physiologies.