"The archaeological evidence for ritualized consumption of cannabis is limited and contentious. Here, we present some of the earliest directly dated and scientifically verified evidence for ritual cannabis smoking. This phytochemical analysis indicates that cannabis plants were burned in wooden braziers during mortuary ceremonies at the Jirzankal Cemetery (ca. 500 BCE) in the eastern Pamirs region. This suggests cannabis was smoked as part of ritual and/or religious activities in western China by at least 2500 years ago and that the cannabis plants produced high levels of psychoactive compounds." Source: Science Magazine (2019).
"Archaeologists recently unveiled newly discovered city ruins in Central China, which reveal an ancient state dating back 5,300 years." Source: Archaeology News Network.
"The Zhengzhou municipal institute of cultural relics and archaeology announced on Thursday in the capital city of Henan province that the Shuanghuaishu site in Gongyi, on the outskirts of Zhengzhou, was the site of a 'huge settlement'. It was the highest-level residential complex ever found of its time along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.
"The ruins, with an area of 1.17 million square meters, lie two kilometers south of the Yellow River at Shuanghuaishu in the township of Heluo, Gongyi city. The ruins are one of the largest tribal clusters of the middle and late phases of Yangshao Culture, emerging around 7,000 years ago during the Neolithic Age."
"Archaeologists in Mongolia have found the remains of two ancient women warriors [? - see below], whose skeletal remains indicate that they were well practiced in archery and horseback riding." Source: Live Science.
"These two women lived during the Xianbei period (A.D. 147 to 552), a period of political fragmentation and unrest that gave rise to the Ballad of Mulan, the researchers said."
This is an interesting (though highly speculative) study despite the typical woke BS about "gender equality" and "bad-ass" women fighters, etc. that always seems to creep into stories like this.
Hua Mulan is a completely legendary / fictional figure, but it's possible that she was partly inspired by real-life female warriors of the time. Unfortunately for this theory, the researchers themselves admit that there's no hard evidence that these "ancient women warriors" were actually warriors:
"Of the two warrior women, one was older than 50 and the other was about 20 years old. It's possible they practiced archery and rode horses because these skills were needed during the political instability that following the collapse of the Han Dynasty in China in A.D. 220 ...
"Neither woman had signs of war trauma. This could be because both women were found in elite graves, and elite people may not have fought in battles ..."
Typically, that caveat is buried in the last paragraph of the article.
"A noblewoman from Imperial China enjoyed playing polo on donkeys so much she had her steeds buried with her so she could keep doing it in the afterlife, archaeologists found." Source: Science Daily.
"...The research provides the first physical evidence of donkey polo in Imperial China, which previously was only known from historical texts. It also sheds light on the role for donkeys in the lives of high status women in that period.
"Researchers found donkey bones in the tomb of Cui Shi, a noblewoman who died in 878 AD in Xi'an, China. The presence of work animals in a wealthy woman's tomb was unexpected, the researchers said."
Note: Donkey polo, known in China as Lvju, is a safer form of regular polo, which is pretty dangerous. The conclusion that the donkey remains found in Cui Shi's grave were used for polo is based on an analysis of "the size and patterns of stresses and strains on the donkey bones from Cui Shi's tomb. Their findings suggest that these small and active donkeys were being used for Lvju."
Comment: Donkey polo may be OK for medieval Chinese noblewomen, but it's nothing compared to the great American sport of donkey basketball.
Comment: This theory is speculative, but the idea that Roman soldiers ended up in China isn't totally implausible. The general scenario of how it could have happened goes like this:
In 53 BC, the Roman politician and general Marcus Crassus (115-53 BC) was killed at the Battle of Carrhae when he led his army into a trap during his ill-advised invasion of Parthia, an empire which bordered on China:
This map shows the location of Parthia when it was part of the Median Empire around 600 BC. Parthia is in the upper part of the yellow region just to the right of the Caspian Sea.
Crassus' invasion of Parthia was a complete disaster:
"In a slaughter known as the battle of Carrhae the Romans lost nearly their entire army and Crassus was killed. [The story is that the Parthians captured Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.] The remaining 10,000 or so Roman legionaries were captured." Source: War History Online.
The Parthians apparently used their Roman prisoners as border guards along the eastern frontiers:
"The Parthians had a standard practice of employing captured soldiers as border guards. By transferring the 10,000 legionaries to the eastern borders they prevented any realistic chance of escape for the Romans who likely would have simply accepted their new lot in life. Record of the soldiers vanish for about 17 years when the battle of Zhizhi was fought as a Chinese army under Chen Tang assaulted a border town known today as Taraz, located in Kazakhstan near the border of Kyrgyzstan." (War History Online)
According to the story, some of these former Roman soldiers and Parthian border guards fought as mercenaries at the battle of Zhizhi. They were either captured or defected to the Chinese, who were impressed by their fighting abilities and -- like the Parthians -- stationed them in a border town to guard the frontier:
"Anywhere from 100 to 1,000 or more soldiers established themselves in this town that was known by the Chinese as Liqian/Li-Jien, which is pronounced as 'legion'." (War History Online) "...It seems these Romans lived peacefully in Liqian, and 2,000 years later we have DNA evidence that over 50% of the villagers in modern day Liqian have Caucasian ancestry including green and blue eyes, increased average height and other distinguishing characteristics such as distinctly Roman noses."
If this story is true, then these Roman soldiers who fought under Crassus at Carrhae (and their descendants) had an extremely wild and strange destiny, to say the least. But is the story true?
First of all, there's no doubt that the inhabitants of the region of Liqian, China, have some kind of European ancestry. According to Wikipedia, "The area of the former Liqian city is known for the distinctive physical appearance of its inhabitants. The population has higher frequencies of traits prevalent in Europe, such as aquiline noses, blonde or light-colored hair, blue or green eyes, and relatively fair skin tones."
Who were these Europeans and where did they come from? The idea that they were Roman soldiers or their descendants isn't all that farfetched, but it's still controversial:
"A hypothesis by the sinologist Homer H. Dubs, according to which Roman legionaries clashed with Han troops during the battle and were resettled afterwards in a Chinese village named Liqian, has been rejected by modern historians and geneticists on the grounds of a critical appraisal of the ancient sources and recent DNA testings of the village people. However, this hypothesis has been supported by prominent scholars like Lev Gumilev."
It's possible that the people of Liqian are descended from Caucasoid Indo-Europeans who were living in the region long before the Romans went to war with Parthia:
You can always trust the experts to mess up a good story, but I've got to admit that some of these Chinese do look like they have Roman ancestry. The people in Liqian are trying to use their supposed relationship with the Romans to boost their tourism industry and who can blame them? Whether the story is true or not is a different matter altogether.
"At the start of the Tang dynasty, in the early 7th century, a young wandering monk embarked on a 16-year long voyage from the imperial capital Chang’an (today’s Xian) to India to collect Buddhist manuscripts. At the time Chang’an was six times bigger than Rome at its height, with a population of over one million – the epicenter of Asian civilization." Source: UNZ Review.
3D animation of ancient Chang'an.
"History ended up converting Xuanzang into a legend and a national hero in China – although in the West he would never reach Marco Polo levels of popularity.
"Xuanzang had embarked on a quest that still resonates today. He wanted to know whether all men – or just an enlightened few – could attain Buddhahood. There was only one way to find out: ride all the way to India and bring back Sanskrit texts to China, especially from the Yogacara school of Buddhism, which professed that the outside world did not exist: it was merely a projection of one’s consciousness."
"Mustang Caves or Sky Caves of Nepal are a collection of some 10,000 man-made caves dug into the sides of valleys in the Mustang District of Nepal. Several groups of archaeologists and researchers have explored these stacked caves and found partially mummified human bodies and skeletons that are at least 2,000–3,000 years old. Explorations of these caves by conservators and archaeologists have also led to the discovery of valuable Buddhist paintings, sculptures, manuscripts and numerous artifacts belonging to the 12th to 14th century. The caves lie on the steep valley walls near the Kali Gandaki River in Upper Mustang. Research groups have continued to investigate these caves, but no one has yet understood who built the caves and why were they built." Source: Wikipedia.
Note: Back in 2011, National Geographic announced that "The remains of 27 ancient men, women, and children" had been discovered in these caves. Several of the bodies had been defleshed and "many of the bones bear cut marks that point to a previously unknown Himalayan death ritual." Defleshing or excarnation "refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial, leaving only the bones." (Wikipedia)
According to Mental Floss (2016), "[s]cientists recently sequenced the whole genomes of eight individuals found in these ancient chambers, revealing the secrets of the first inhabitants of the Himalayas." The DNA analysis revealed that "the first inhabitants of the Himalayas came down from the north, from East Asian populations of the Tibetan plateau. Their genetic profile most closely resembles modern-day Sherpa and Tibetan populations."
I'm not sure how accurate the dating is in this 2015 video.
Ancient tools and bones discovered in China by archaeologists suggest early humans left Africa and arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought. " Source: Science Daily (2018).
"...The artefacts show that our earliest human ancestors colonised East Asia over two million years ago...The artefacts include a notch, scrapers, cobble, hammer stones and pointed pieces. All show signs of use -- the stone had been intentionally flaked."
Note: As far as I can tell, no human or prehuman remains were discovered at this site, but I'm guessing that these stone tools -- if they are stone tools -- were made by Homo Erectus, currently believed to have migrated into Asia around 1.9 million years ago.
Homo Erectus is known to have been a tool maker. For instance, back in 2013, Live Science reported that some very old stone axes were discovered in Ethiopia. These tools, associated with Homo Erectus remains, were around 1.75 million years old.
"A total of 131 hanging coffins were recently discovered in Moping township of Zigui county, central China's Hubei province. The coffins were found on a cliff that was 50 meters wide and 100 meters high." Source: Archaeology News Network (2015).
"It is one of the biggest hanging coffin tomb sites to be found so far in Chinese mainland. The wooden coffins were placed in man-made caves or natural rock tunnels on the cliff. According to archaeologists, these hanging coffin tombs can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty of 1,200 years ago, and the tomb owners were Bo people, an ancient aboriginal tribe in southwest China."
Tourist video from 2013. Audio improves about halfway through.
"Hanging coffins are an ancient funeral custom of some ethnic groups, especially the Bo people of southern China. Coffins of various shapes were mostly carved from one whole piece of wood. Hanging coffins either lie on beams projecting outward from vertical faces such as mountains, are placed in caves in the face of cliffs, or sit on natural rock projections on mountain faces." Source: Wikipedia.
"It was said that the hanging coffins could prevent bodies from being taken by beasts and also bless the soul eternally. Spiritually, the Bo people viewed the mountain cliffs as a stairway to heaven and believed that by placing the coffins up high the deceased would be closer to heaven. A practical reason for placing the coffins on cliffs includes isolation, so that they are hard for animals to reach and less vulnerable to destruction."
Notes: "The Belitung shipwreck (also called the Tang shipwreck or Batu Hitam shipwreck) is the wreck of an Arabian dhow which sailed a route from Africa to China around 830 AD. The ship completed the outward journey, but sank on the return journey, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia." Source: Wikipedia.
The Belitung shipwreck, along with two other ships discovered in the area, "turned out to be an undersea treasure trove of such massive historical significance that Shanghai, Singapore and Doha in Qatar are vying with each other to buy the cargo," according to The Independent (2011) .
"The treasure was part of a huge cargo of eighth-century porcelain that traders from the Chinese Tang dynasty had put aboard an Arab dhow for export to Malaysia, India and what is now Saudi Arabia. The dhow's remains, found among the treasure, suggest the ship was wrecked on the treacherous underwater reefs of Indonesia's Karimata straits on its outward voyage through the Java sea." (The Independent)