National Geographic's "Explorer" series is back this summer with new episodes, one of which offers an investigative look at some puzzling mummies found it China's hinterland. China's Secret Mummies investigates the ethnic and geographic origins of the unusually tall and caucasian-featured mummies and mixes detective work with live-action reenactment to tell their story.It's clear from the show's brevity that the investigation is ongoing, but the preliminary findings raise interesting questions about our notions of the prehistoric world. Initially assumed to be an isolated pocket of displaced proto-Europeans, the artifacts found with the mummies raised eyebrows. European textiles, a Middle-Eastern saddle, shells from the South Pacific, and bronze tools lend contradictory interpretations of the group's origins. This is borne out in genetic testing, which shows that the population shares genetic markers from several different regions and is evident of interbreeding. One commentator likens the population's ethnic diversity to that of a modern urban center, clearly not an isolated group from a single point of origin.The conclusion drawn by the program is that the region in western China was the nexus of a trade network that linked China, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle-East and Europe, millennia before this sort of far-ranging trade was thought common. The evidence at such a removed date is limited, but it will be interesting to see what further investigations along these lines may result in.We tend to think of an international economy as a modern phenomenon, but this "modernity" is continually being pushed back in time. It has already been shown that "world systems" like that described by Wallerstein can be seen in the 13th century, and it is not much of a stretch to see similar examples in the Roman and Alexandrian empires. Now it appears that there is evidence of a prehistoric "world system." Interbreeding is a sign of prolonged cross-cultural exposure, and indicates that the settlements in western China may have been an established trade outpost.Supporting evidence for this theory would come in the form of artifacts from far-flung regions showing up in places like China. As more of China's archaeological history is uncovered this is certainly more likely. Unfortunately, China's headlong rush towards industrialization means that this evidence may be destroyed: intentionally to avoid costly delays, or unintentionally, as in the case of the Three-Gorges Dam project that promises to cover many of China's most ancient sites with millions of gallons of water. China's archaeologists are scrambling to preserve as much of its history as possible, but they can't save everything and this page may soon be lost forever.
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