With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

DNA tests reveal 1st foreign worker in China

Chinese archaeologists have discovered the remains of what may prove to be the country's first foreign worker -- an early European who labored on the mausoleum of China's first emperor.

The discovery was made after DNA tests on human remains from one of the laborers' tombs surrounding the mausoleum of Qingshihuang, in northwestern Shaanxi Province, which was built more than 2,200 years ago.

Archaeologists found the foreign remains among 121 shattered human skeletons in a tomb about 500 meters from the famous museum housing the life-sized terracotta warriors and their horses and weapons.

The discovery means that contacts between the people in east Asia and those in what is now central Asia actually began a century earlier than the previously supposed Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) period.
Read entire article at China View