Mallory and Mair relate the earliest Bronze Age settlers of the Tarim and Turpan basins to the Afanasevo culture. The Afanasevo culture ("c." 3500–2500 BCE) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Eurasian Steppe yet predates the specifically Indo-Iranian-associated Andronovo culture ("c." 2000–900 BCE) enough to isolate the Tocharian languages from Indo-Iranian linguistic innovations like satemization. Han Kangxin, who examined the skulls of 302 mummies, found the closest relatives of the earlier Tarim Basin population in the populations of the Afanasevo culture situated immediately north of the Tarim Basin and the Andronovo culture that spanned Kazakhstan and reached southwards into West Central Asia and the Altai.