Afanasievo in the context of "Tarim mummies"

The Tocharians or Tokharians (US: /toʊˈkɛəriənˌ -ˈkɑːr-/ toh-KAIR-ee-ən, -⁠KAR-; UK: /tɒˈkɑːriən/ to-KAR-ee-ən) were speakers of the Tocharian languages, a group of Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from the 6th and 7th centuries, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China). The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi (Latin: Tochari), who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC. This identification is now generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers. Their endonym is unknown, although they may have referred to themselves as the Agni, Kuči, and Krorän or as the Agniya and Kuchiya known from Sanskrit texts.

Agricultural communities first appeared in the oases of the northern Tarim circa 2000 BC. Some scholars have linked these communities to the Afanasievo culture found earlier (c. 3500–2500 BC) in Siberia, north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture. The earliest Tarim mummies date from c. 1800 BC, but it is unclear whether they are connected to the Tocharians of two millennia later. This once theorized ancestry between Tocharians and these mummies is however now largely considered to be discredited by the absence of a genetic connection with Indo-European-speaking migrants, particularly the Afanasievo or BMAC cultures.