List of Tocharian (Agnean-Kuchean) peoples
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This is a list of the peoples that are called “Tocharians” (although now most scholars think it is a misnomer for them) also known by the name Agnean-Kuchean, a now extinct Indo-European group of peoples that were speakers of a distinct Indo-European branch of languages. They inhabited the Tarim Basin (occupied in most part by the Taklamakan desert) in today's Xinjiang Chinese Province, in western China. At the end of the first Millennium AD they were assimilated by the Turkic Uyghur people and lost their distinct ethnic identity.
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Several scholars such as J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair argue that they were descendants of the Afanasievo culture people, that possibly were speakers of an Indo-European language or languages and that, in a still undetermined time, migrated south towards the Tarim Basin and settled mainly on the northern and eastern edges, and also on some southern edges (north, east and south of the Taklamakan desert).[1]