Uyghurs
Contemporary scholars consider modern Uyghurs to be the descendants of a number of people, including the ancient Uyghurs of Mongolia who arrived at the Tarim Basin after the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate, Iranic Saka tribes, and other Indo-European peoples who inhabited the Tarim Basin before the arrival of the Turkic Uyghurs. DNA analyses indicate that the peoples of central Asia such as the Uyghurs are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian. Uyghur activists identify with the Tarim mummies, remains of an ancient people who inhabited the region, but research into the genetics of ancient Tarim mummies and their links with modern Uyghurs remains problematic, both to Chinese government officials concerned with ethnic separatism, and to Uyghur activists concerned that the research could affect their people's claim of being indigenous to the region.
Uyghurlar
Uyghurlar (in English: "The Uyghurs") is a book by historian Turghun Almas on the history of the "6,000 year history" of the Uyghur ethnic group of the Xinjiang region of China. It was published in the People's Republic of China in 1989, at a high point of liberalization of academic freedom and ethnic minority policy in China. It was one of the books of the period that presented an "alternative Uyghur history", based on Soviet historiography during the Sino-Soviet split, that advanced the thesis that the Uyghurs are the historical owner of Xinjiang and should have an independent state. It was also one of the first books to publicize the term East Turkestan, which suggests a kinship to a "West Turkestan" in the independent Central Asian states. In contrast to the official Chinese history of Xinjiang, which states that the region was an integral part of China since the Han dynasty, the book takes a nationalist view, saying that many "Uyghur" states throughout history were independent of, or even dominant over, China.