XI'AN, June 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese archaeologists have found in a DNA test that a foreigner participated in building the mausoleum of Qinshihuang, the first emperor of unified and centralized Chinamore than 2,200 years ago.

    The discovery proves that people in eastern Asia had contacts at that time with those in nowadays the central part of Asian continent. It has been believed that exchanges between the two areas started in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), said Duan Qingbo,head of the Qinshihuang Mausoleum Excavation Team under the Cultural Heritage Institute of northwestern Shaanxi Province, where the mammoth tomb was located.

    Scientists have taken 15 DNA samples from 50 remains in a laborer tomb with 121 broken human skeleton. The tomb is about 500 meters away from the famous museum housing life-sized terracotta warriors and their horses.

    "In comparison with the DNA data of modern human being, we found one sample has typical DNA features commonly owned by the Parsi in India and Pakistan, the Kurds in Turkmenistan and the Persian in Iran," said Tan Jingze, an associate professor with the modern anthropology research center under the prestigious Shanghai-based Fudan University, which is responsible for the DNA test.

    The foreigner was a man died in his twenties and was a European in terms of ethnology, said Tan.

    He might be caught from the north where nomad people traveled between the east and west of Asia. And then he was sent to work at the burial ground in the inland areas of China, according to Tan. Enditem