Happy Wanderers

Interesting story about a possible explanation for those blue-eyed Chinese in the western regions:

Genetic testing of villagers in a remote part of China has shown that nearly two thirds of their DNA is of Caucasian origin, lending support to the theory that they may be descended from a 'lost legion' of Roman soldiers.

It's an interesting story, about a group of Roman legionaries fleeing east after their legion was decisively defeated -- in fact, almost wiped out -- by the Parthians in 53 BCE. But there's no hard evidence.

Given the propensity for peoples to wander around -- we certainly know about migrations in historical times, and there's no reason to assume they're something new -- I'd have to place this as a legend rather than a theory -- absent some historical records or a couple of really spectacular archaeological finds. After all, there is a language family that includes not only almost all European languages but those spoken in north Asia as well. It would be a stretch to think that they weren't brought there by people who actually spoke them as their first language.