Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia (2013)
What is interesting is that Chinese is not I this superfamily.<p>For me, ancient Chinese civilization is so interesting in large part because of how isolated it is. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia and even India were in regular communication with each other. Empires such as the Persians and Alexander the Great fought across all these civilizations. The Romans had direct trade with India via the Indian Ocean.<p>However, Chinese civilization is located far away from those ones. I think there is still debate if Chinese writing rose de novo or was  influenced by writing from Sumer.<p>At the same time, even though it was so distant, China still had a very advanced civilization (and in many ways was more advanced than those of the Middle East and Europe for much of history)