The witch hat can be seen everywhere, from Halloween costumes to Hollywood films. But what many may not know is that a particular group of “witches” in northwestern China have, for decades, haunted historians and anthropologists with questions relating to the origins of the headgear and early human migration.
The discovery of well-preserved mummies in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang shook the archaeological world in the early 20th century, and significant investigations since the 1990s have continued to baffle scholars.
