Editing Uyghurs (section)

===Early history===
Discovery of well-preserved [[Tarim mummies]] of a people European in appearance indicates the migration of a European-looking people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the [[Bronze Age]] around 1800 BC. These people may have been of [[Tocharians|Tocharian]] origin, and some have suggested them to be the [[Yuezhi]] mentioned in ancient Chinese texts.{{sfn|Millward|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA14 14]}}<ref>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia |author=A. K Narain |chapter= Chapter 6 – Indo-Europeans in Inner Asia |editor = Denis Sinor |page=153 |isbn=978-0-521-24304-9|date=March 1990 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> The Tocharians are thought to have developed from the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] speaking [[Afanasevo culture]] of Southern Siberia (c. 3500–2500 BC).<ref>David W. Anthony, "Two IE phylogenies, three PIE migrations, and four kinds of steppe pastoralism", ''Journal of Language Relationship'', vol. 9 (2013), pp. 1–22</ref> A study published in 2021 showed that the earliest Tarim Basin cultures had high levels of [[Ancient North Eurasian]] ancestry, with smaller admixture from [[Genetic history of East Asians|Northeast Asians]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Zhang|first1=F|last2=Ning|first2=C|last3=Scott|first3=A|display-authors=etal|date=2021|title=The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies|journal=Nature|volume=599|issue=7884|pages=256–261|doi=10.1038/s41586-021-04052-7|pmid=34707286|pmc=8580821|bibcode=2021Natur.599..256Z}}</ref> Uyghur activist Turgun Almas claimed that Tarim mummies were Uyghurs because the earliest Uyghurs practiced shamanism and the buried mummies' orientation suggests that they had been shamanists; meanwhile, Qurban Wäli claimed words written in Kharosthi and Sogdian scripts as "Uyghur" rather than Sogdian words absorbed into Uyghur according to other linguists.<ref>{{cite book |title=Xinjiang, China's Muslim Borderland |chapter=Chapter 14 – Contested histories |author=Gardner Bovingdon |year=2004 |editor=S. Frederick Starr |pages=357–358 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe Incorporated |isbn=978-0-7656-1318-9 }}</ref>

Later migrations brought peoples from the west and northwest to the Xinjiang region, probably speakers of various Iranian languages such as the [[Saka]] tribes, who were closely related to the European [[Scythians]] and descended from the earlier [[Andronovo culture]],<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Unterländer|first1=Martina|last2=Palstra|first2=Friso|last3=Lazaridis|first3=Iosif |last4=Pilipenko|first4=Aleksandr|last5=Hofmanová|first5=Zuzana|last6=Groß|first6=Melanie|last7=Sell |first7=Christian |last8=Blöcher|first8=Jens|last9=Kirsanow|first9=Karola|last10=Rohland|first10=Nadin |last11=Rieger|first11=Benjamin|date=3 March 2017|title=Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe |journal=Nature Communications|volume=8|pages=14615|issn=2041-1723 |doi=10.1038/ncomms14615|pmc=5337992|pmid=28256537|bibcode=2017NatCo...814615U}}</ref> and who may have been present in the [[Khotan]] and [[Kashgar]] area in the first millennium BC, as well as the [[Sogdians]] who formed networks of trading communities across the Tarim Basin from the 4th century AD.{{sfn|Millward|2007|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA13 13], [https://books.google.com/books?id=8FVsWq31MtMC&pg=PA29 29]}} There may also be an Indian component as the founding legend of [[Kingdom of Khotan|Khotan]] suggests that the city was founded by Indians from [[Taxila (ancient)|ancient Taxila]] during the reign of [[Ashoka]].<ref name="Mallory 2000">{{cite book | last1 =Mallory | first1 =J. P. | author-link =J. P. Mallory | last2 =Mair | first2 =Victor H. | author2-link =Victor H. Mair | year =2000| pages = 77–81| title =The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West | place =London | publisher =Thames & Hudson}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XXGhAL1WKcC&pg=PA193 |title=The Early History of India|first= Vincent A. |last= Smith | page=193 |publisher= Atlantic Publishers |date= 1999|isbn=978-8171566181}}</ref> Other people in the region mentioned in ancient Chinese texts include the [[Dingling]] as well as the [[Xiongnu]] who fought for supremacy in the region against the Chinese for several hundred years. Some Uyghur nationalists also claimed descent from the Xiongnu (according to the Chinese historical text the ''[[Book of Wei]]'', the founder of the Uyghurs was descended from a Xiongnu ruler),{{sfn|Golden|1992|p=155}} but the view is contested by modern Chinese scholars.<ref name="Tursun"/>

The Yuezhi were driven away by the Xiongnu but founded the [[Kushan Empire]], which exerted some influence in the Tarim Basin, where [[Kharosthi]] texts have been found in [[Loulan Kingdom|Loulan]], [[Niya (Tarim Basin)|Niya]] and [[Kingdom of Khotan|Khotan]]. Loulan and Khotan were some of the many city-states that existed in the Xinjiang region during the [[Han dynasty]]; others include [[Kucha]], [[Turfan]], [[Karasahr]] and [[Kashgar]]. These kingdoms in the Tarim Basin came under the control of China during the Han and Tang dynasties. During the [[Tang dynasty]] they were conquered and placed under the control of the [[Protectorate General to Pacify the West]], and the Indo-European cultures of these kingdoms never recovered from Tang rule after thousands of their inhabitants were killed during the conquest.<ref>{{cite book  | chapter = T'ai-tsung (reign 624–49) the consolidator  | first = Howard J. | last = Wechsler | page = 228  | title = Sui and T'ang China, 589–906, Part 1  | editor-given = Denis | editor-surname = Twitchett | editor-link = Denis C. Twitchett | series = [[The Cambridge History of China]] | volume = 3  | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1979 | isbn = 978-0-521-21446-9 }}</ref> The settled population of these cities later merged with the incoming Turkic people, including the Uyghurs of Uyghur Khaganate, to form the modern Uyghurs. The Indo-European [[Tocharian language]] later disappeared as the urban population switched to a Turkic language such as the [[Old Uyghur language]].<ref>{{citation
  | title = The problem of Tocharian origins: an archaeological perspective
  | given = J.P. | surname = Mallory | author-link = J. P. Mallory
  | journal = Sino-Platonic Papers | number = 259 | year = 2015
  | url = http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp259_tocharian_origins.pdf
  | page = 273
}}</ref>

The early [[Turkic peoples]] descended from agricultural communities in [[Northeast Asia]] who moved westwards into [[Mongolia]] in the late 3rd millennium BC, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle.{{sfn|Robbeets|2017|pp=216–218}}{{sfn|Robbeets|2020}}{{sfn|Nelson et al.|2020}}{{sfn|Li et al.|2020}}{{sfn|Uchiyama et al.|2020}} By the early 1st millennium BC, these peoples had become [[equestrian nomads]].{{sfn|Robbeets|2017|pp=216–218}} In subsequent centuries, the steppe populations of [[Central Asia]] appear to have been progressively [[Turkification|Turkified]] by [[East Asian people|East Asian]] nomadic Turks, moving out of Mongolia.<ref name="Damgaard_Conclusion">{{harvnb|Damgaard et al.|2018|pp=4–5}}. "These results suggest that Turkic cultural customs were imposed by an East Asian minority elite onto central steppe nomad populations... The wide distribution of the Turkic languages from Northwest China, Mongolia and Siberia in the east to Turkey and Bulgaria in the west implies large-scale migrations out of the homeland in Mongolia.</ref><ref name="Kuang_Lee_197">{{harvnb|Lee|Kuang|2017|p=197}}. "Both Chinese histories and modern dna studies indicate that the early and medieval Turkic peoples were made up of heterogeneous populations. The Turkicisation of central and western Eurasia was not the product of migrations involving a homogeneous entity, but that of language diffusion."</ref>