AHC Have the Tocharians survive into present day

Do you think Tocharians could possible have assimilated the Uyghurs and not the other way around

  • yes

    Votes: 57 87.7%
  • no

    Votes: 8 12.3%

  • Total voters
    65

Albert.Nik

Banned
For the most part,Tocharians were not organized to a large extent as with the case of Scythians as well. They lived in smaller city states in their homeland in Tarim Basin. Tarim Basin and surrounding does have fairly good resources for empire building. They could have expanded more organized. But on the other hand,they are not to be underestimated. They could conquer large parts of India and create an Unified empire in India,Central Asia,Tarim Basin,Bactria under Kanishka which was the first after the Mauryas collapsed centuries ago and even surpassing the then World's Superpower,Greeks. Empire that big is no joke. But the empire didn't last very long. Had they been more successful in establishing colonies across this gigantic territory,you could see a strong Tocharian empire in the East like Romans in the West. The population of this land would be mostly Tocharian and as with Europe,the genetics of the ruling Tocharian class would pervade more as it does in Northern Italy,France where the Germanic peoples with similar ethnic composition established.
I didn't know that Sri Lankans looked like Germans or Frenchmen, but ok.
The original Indo-European ancestors of Indians,Sri Lankan and Maldivians were actually similar to Europeans. Due to an Upheavel that is supposed to have taken place in Southeast Central Asia,the original Indo-Aryans became extinct due to mixing. But due to a caste system originating at that age,Indo-European features increase as you go up the Castes. However,Punjabis,Jatts,Gujjars,Kalash,Dards and Kashmiris are the only peoples whom you could compare to an European person, remaining in the Indo-Aryan section. Kalash and Dards are the Purest Indo-Aryans that exist for now. Jatts,Punjabis,Gujjars,etc have a good admixture of Tocharians and Scythians as they live in NW India from where all these empires came from. Indo-Aryans of the Mitanni never touched India in the native territories so they might have remained White. But they are a thing of the Past as well. But sticking to Tocharians and Scythians,they were nothing short of Nordic(before Turkic invasions). In Iran,still the large traces of the Indo-Iranians still exist. Same with Kurds. Ossetians are the purest Indo-Iranians surviving today and are descended directly from Scythians itself.
Edit: Some Indo-Aryans as I said did survive in the mountains and fertile river valleys of North Pakistan and East Afghanistan as Kamboj,Gandharva,etc. But today,they are very numbered or extinct. Avestan,Old Persian and Vedic Sanskrit are extremely similar. This means that the Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan separation happened just before they entered India and mixed. Most of the Vedic Aryans who migrated to India are said to be male. A possible war might have separated the Indo-Iranian civilization into two of which one stayed back and eventually entered Anatolia and established a state with Hurrians(who were also White) and one to Iran and Central Asia becoming the greater Iranian peoples the other entered India and eventually mixed. This is a hypothesis. Not many things are known about the Original Indo-Iranians.
 
Last edited:

Albert.Nik

Banned
Maybe he refers to the mummies of Tocharia or the varied depictions in their own art or descriptions made by Chinese observers. Though, I have little knowledge in this area.
Tocharians as a whole were Indo-Europeans descended purely from those who migrated from Caucasus and Eastern Europe purely like Swedes,Germans,Russians,Czechs,etc. Tocharians are depicted in paintings clearly with Northern European features. There were no natives there(Tarim Basin,Kyrgyzstan,West Central Asia) and definitely not natives with whom once mixed,European features will go away. The Asian peoples like Turks and Mongols lived a long distance from them at that time yet. Ancestral South Indians couldn't even leave a trace that far away. Also,the cause of Vedic Aryans migrating into India and getting extinct as pure Vedic Aryans is probably because of an Upheavel or a conflict. Had they settled in a different way like having more planned settler kingdoms and empires earlier,you would have majority number of European looking Indians looking somewhat like today's Greeks,Iranians,Italians,etc.
 
I don't think people know what the Tocharians would've been like genetically yet.

We know that it appears that the people we generally identify with Indo-European speaking cultures on the Western and Central steppes from at least 3000 BCE to the Iron Age were genetically closest matches to Northern Europeans among all present day peoples, though not identical. This appears to be because of migrations into Europe from that region and then migration from Europe back onto the steppes. And so it seems fairly likely that these would also be the most closely matching populations in terms of appearance that are still around today (though still fairly different). And from here it seems all the other Indo-European cultures originate via migration, absorption, mixture.

But the Tocharians identifed at 600-800 AD, though Indo-European, are much later and in a totally different place. They may well have had much more ancestry from people moving out along the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor with different ancestry and from the Eastern Steppe, and China.

(I would guess this to be Intransigent Southerner's point, less pithily expressed; that we know at least some peoples who were speaking Indo-European languages by this time were generally genetically and in appearance far removed from what look like the earliest communities of IE speakers on the steppes by the shores of the Black and Caspian seas? So consider Tocharians in this light.).
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
How do you get a strong Kushan empire?
Get the founder Kujula Kadphises or Kanishka to settle large number of Tocharians in Central Asian river valleys and Indian Himalayan foothills who would be brought from Kuche or Agne or Kashgar or some Kushanized Scythians or if possible Anatolians/Iranians or Slavs. Give them incentives to breed more children as did Rome. You will have it.
 
Get the founder Kujula Kadphises or Kanishka to settle large number of Tocharians in Central Asian river valleys and Indian Himalayan foothills who would be brought from Kuche or Agne or Kashgar or some Kushanized Scythians or if possible Anatolians/Iranians or Slavs. Give them incentives to breed more children as did Rome. You will have it.

I'm loving the idea of a Kushan, or Tocharian Empire effectively importing an urban population.

-SCENE BEGINS-

A slaver, a slave and a buyer are standing inside the walls of a Tocharian City.

Buyer : "Hello, welcome to Kashgar, move over to the right and we'll break your chains once we've paid the slaver"

Slave : "What?"

Buyer : "Well, you see, you're free - to settle."

Slave : "What?!"

Buyer : "We needed more farmers, you were a farmer, and well - the hike is a bit of a bother"

Slave : "WHAT?!"

Buyer : "Relax, you're free now that you're here, now have a glass of water and we'll find you a plot of land and a spear"

Slave : "Wh...at?"

Slaver : "Thanks for the gold, [John]"

-END SCENE-
 
They are also interesting linguistics wise- Tocharian is a Centum language (like Romance and Germanic), while the Indo-Iranian languages are Satem languages (Baltic and Slavic are, too).
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
I'm loving the idea of a Kushan, or Tocharian Empire effectively importing an urban population.

-SCENE BEGINS-

A slaver, a slave and a buyer are standing inside the walls of a Tocharian City.

Buyer : "Hello, welcome to Kashgar, move over to the right and we'll break your chains once we've paid the slaver"

Slave : "What?"

Buyer : "Well, you see, you're free - to settle."

Slave : "What?!"

Buyer : "We needed more farmers, you were a farmer, and well - the hike is a bit of a bother"

Slave : "WHAT?!"

Buyer : "Relax, you're free now that you're here, now have a glass of water and we'll find you a plot of land and a spear"

Slave : "Wh...at?"

Slaver : "Thanks for the gold, [John]"

-END SCENE-
Can you elaborate please? I doubt such an emperor would love to establish more settler colonies within the Tarim Basin near Kashghar. They would most probably choose Punjab and Uttarakhand near Himalayan foothills,KPK region of Pakistan,Central Asian river valleys and such and after little advancements,towards Delhi or something. But I doubt Fair skinned settlers would like the idea to settle in such hot and sunny regions like Delhi before Industrializing(Arizona,Texas,Australia,Nevada were settled by White people post Industrial age AFAIK). First they would settle and dominate the Central Asia after unifying it and after a sufficient advancement,they would come into mainland India with stream punk like industrial empire. If they were that unified and continued like that,I am sure they could have done. They could have easily defeated the Huns and Mongols assimilating them I to Tocharians but Tocharian population would be very huge so little genetic markers if any. Or they may never enter the Empire or the West at all and stay where they are after getting defeated by Kushans. Later,the steampunk like Solar colonies would be settled in hotter regions of India.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
They are also interesting linguistics wise- Tocharian is a Centum language (like Romance and Germanic), while the Indo-Iranian languages are Satem languages (Baltic and Slavic are, too).
Tocharians and the Anatolians were Easternmost Centum speakers for a native population though Greeks were that far at one time,they weren't native. Today,it is English which is also a Centum language and the easternmost place is Australia/NZ( :openedeyewink: )
 
Can you elaborate please? I doubt such an emperor would love to establish more settler colonies within the Tarim Basin near Kashghar. They would most probably choose Punjab and Uttarakhand near Himalayan foothills,KPK region of Pakistan,Central Asian river valleys and such and after little advancements,towards Delhi or something. But I doubt Fair skinned settlers would like the idea to settle in such hot and sunny regions like Delhi before Industrializing(Arizona,Texas,Australia,Nevada were settled by White people post Industrial age AFAIK). First they would settle and dominate the Central Asia after unifying it and after a sufficient advancement,they would come into mainland India with stream punk like industrial empire. If they were that unified and continued like that,I am sure they could have done. They could have easily defeated the Huns and Mongols assimilating them I to Tocharians but Tocharian population would be very huge so little genetic markers if any. Or they may never enter the Empire or the West at all and stay where they are after getting defeated by Kushans. Later,the steampunk like Solar colonies would be settled in hotter regions of India.

I mean, I was making a joke.

But the idea is to import a population that can be assimilated and increase the tax base of a potential Tocharian heartland. A bit like how Phllip historically settled rural populations, instead the Tocharians use Silk Road Gold to buy major quantities of slaves (not willing slaves of course) to settle.

I mean, they could just be freed, hence the humour in the sheer confusion for the imported slave, but more likely they'd be imported, made to work, and their children could well be taken and raised as free Tocharians.

As to the rest of the post... I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I was being silly.
 
Top