- Indo-European migrations, with location of the Afanasievo culture (genetically identical to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppes) and their probable Tocharian descendants.
Tocharians — a people inhabiting Central Asia from the 2nd century BC to the 1st millennium AD; 2) the name of a people who spoke Indo-European Tocharian languages (see Tocharian languages). Originally (3rd-2nd millennium BC) they lived in Eastern Europe; no later than the middle of the 1st millennium AD — in Central Asia. The Tocharians as an Indo-European people of Central Asia (known from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD), who spoke Tocharian languages — presumably the easternmost speakers of Indo-European languages. Initially, they occupied the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region, Gansu). Their presumed appearance can be judged by the Tarim mummies, the earliest of which date back to the 18th century BC.
The Tocharians (pseudo-Tocharians) presumably originated from the Afanasievo archaeological culture, which existed in the Minusinsk steppe and Altai. Presumably, they moved southeast and settled in the lands of Tarim. Their language belonged to the western group of Indo-European languages (centum group), which included the languages of the Celts, Germans, and Italics, but not Indo-Iranians, with whom they neighbored, whose languages belong to the eastern group of Indo-European languages (satem group). Tocharian as an Indo-European language is outlined in the same region, and although the first evidence of the language dates to the 6th century, indirect evidence, such as the difference between dialects A and B and the absence of Tocharian remnants outside the region, suggests that this language existed in Tocharian settlements at the end of the first millennium BC. According to Chinese data, during the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Yuezhi kingdom flourished, but at the same time it constantly feuded with the surrounding Xiongnu to the northeast; next to this state peacefully coexisted the Tocharians (pseudo-Tocharians), who closely interacted with the Yuezhi.
In scholarship, Tocharians are divided into true (or genuine, who are part of the Yuezhi, who spoke Eastern Iranian northern dialects related to the languages of the Scythians, who went south with the Kushans and gave the name to the region of Tokharistan in the north of the lands of the modern Republic of Afghanistan) and non-genuine (pseudo-Tocharians) — those to whom the Chinese and others transferred this name, but who spoke Tocharian dialects that are not closely related to the languages of the Yuezhi and did not call themselves Tocharians, unlike the true Tocharians. In February 2010, a genetic study of the remains of ancient inhabitants of the Tarim Basin (in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region) was published, from the oldest layer of the cemetery (c. 2000 BC), where suitable material for study was taken. All samples belonged to male haplogroup R1a1a.
VARIANT NAMES: Greek Τοχαριοι, Russian Tokhary, Togary, Pseudo-Tokhary.
Sources:
Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians. D.A. Arshba, 2015