(CN) — Much of what is known about the people who occupied the Tarim basin in what is now Xinjiang, China, during the Bronze Age still poses a riddle. Though the region is now a desert, the people buried there from 3000 to 1700 B.C. were mummified by the arid climate and placed in boats marked by oars, with cheese and wool thought to be developed thousands of miles away.
Until now, researchers had proposed three migration routes: either they were western Eurasians moving south from Siberia, or they were Central Asian farmers moving east, or else they had to be a mobile pastoral community moving west along the mountains.
Genetic analysis published in the journal Nature on Thursday reveals the Tarim people were a genetically isolated population of ancient North Eurasians with roots dating back to the Holocene.
“Archaeogeneticists have long searched for Holocene Ancient North Eurasian populations in order to better understand the genetic history of Inner Eurasia. We have found one in the most unexpected place,” explained author Choongwon Jeong, a professor of biological sciences at Seoul National University, in a statement.
This discovery notably challenges previously held assumptions that cultures traveled with shared genes. Thursday's study shows the Tarim people collected technologies and cultures from thousands of miles away while retaining their genetic distinction.
“The main argument for why it was thought that they came from somewhere far away is that they had all they have all these far-flung goods,” molecular archaeologist Christina Warinner said in an interview. Warinner is a professor of anthropology at Harvard University and a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
“What we found is that the genetic evidence isn't really consistent with that, these do not appear to be long-distance migrants at all,” Warinner said. “In fact, they seem to be a local population that is just very culturally distinctive and particularly open to incorporating new ideas.”
The international team of researchers analyzed human remains excavated from 1979 to 2017 and preserved by the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Thirteen of the individuals studied dated to the Middle Bronze Age, while five dated to the Early Bronze Age.
Researchers conducted whole-genome sequencing and obtained 1.2 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms. While most of the lab work was completed pre-pandemic, the analysis was conducted remotely with researchers in Korea, China and the U.S.
By incorporating dairy pastoralism with wheat and millet agriculture from others in the region, the Tarim people developed a culture that allowed them to thrive among the ever-shifting river oases flowing from mountain snow runoff.
"The authors’ conclusions have implications for future studies of Inner Asian prehistory that must address the complex relationship between cultural exchange and genetic ancestry,” archaeologist Paula Doumani Dupuy wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.
"Several new questions must shape future research,” Dupuy, of the Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, added. “Do the mummies represent a population confined to the basin from an earlier point in the past, or did they enter only during the Bronze Age? What knowledge and traditions did those groups bring, and why did they settle in this extreme environment?"
While further understanding of complex ancient migration requires more research, Warinner said advancements in genetic sequencing helped drive progress in the field.
“We're getting a much better picture of the connectivity of ancient societies and how people move and what happened when they interacted,” Warinner said.
The Max Planck Society provided funding for this research.
Follow @bright_lamp
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
