The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies
Fan Zhang, Chao Ning, […]Yinqiu Cui Nature (2021)Cite this article
Abstract The identity of the earliest inhabitants of Xinjiang, in the heart of Inner Asia, and the languages that they spoke have long been debated and remain contentious1. Here we present genomic data from 5 individuals dating to around 3000–2800 BC from the Dzungarian Basin and 13 individuals dating to around 2100–1700 BC from the Tarim Basin, representing the earliest yet discovered human remains from North and South Xinjiang, respectively. We find that the Early Bronze Age Dzungarian individuals exhibit a predominantly Afanasievo ancestry with an additional local contribution, and the Early–Middle Bronze Age Tarim individuals contain only a local ancestry. The Tarim individuals from the site of Xiaohe further exhibit strong evidence of milk proteins in their dental calculus, indicating a reliance on dairy pastoralism at the site since its founding. Our results do not support previous hypotheses for the origin of the Tarim mummies, who were argued to be Proto-Tocharian-speaking pastoralists descended from the Afanasievo1,2 or to have originated among the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex3 or Inner Asian Mountain Corridor cultures4. Instead, although Tocharian may have been plausibly introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants during the Early Bronze Age, we find that the earliest Tarim Basin cultures appear to have arisen from a genetically isolated local population that adopted neighbouring pastoralist and agriculturalist practices, which allowed them to settle and thrive along the shifting riverine oases of the Taklamakan Desert.
This study illuminates in detail the origins of the Bronze Age human populations in the Dzungarian and Tarim basins of Xinjiang. Notably, our results support no hypothesis involving substantial human migration from steppe or mountain agropastoralists for the origin of the Bronze Age Tarim mummies, but rather we find that the Tarim mummies represent a culturally cosmopolitan but genetically isolated autochthonous population. This finding is consistent with earlier arguments that the IAMC served as a geographic corridor and vector for regional cultural interaction that connected disparate populations from the fourth to the second millennium BC (refs. 24,25). While the arrival and admixture of Afanasievo populations in the Dzungarian Basin of northern Xinjiang around 3000 BC may have plausibly introduced Indo-European languages to the region, the material culture and genetic profile of the Tarim mummies from around 2100 BC onwards call into question simplistic assumptions about the link between genetics, culture and language and leave unanswered the question of whether the Bronze Age Tarim populations spoke a form of proto-Tocharian. Future archaeological and palaeogenomic research on subsequent Tarim Basin populations—and most importantly, studies of the sites and periods where first millennium AD Tocharian texts have been recovered—are necessary to understand the later population history of the Tarim Basin. Finally, the palaeogenomic characterization of the Tarim mummies has unexpectedly revealed one of the few known Holocene-era genetic descendant populations of the once widespread Pleistocene ANE ancestry profile. The Tarim mummy genomes thus provide a critical reference point for genetically modelling Holocene-era populations and reconstructing the population history of Asia.
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Interestingly there are two U5 individual and their mtDNA is Q1
wiki
Haplogroup Q or Q-M242 is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It has one primary subclade, Haplogroup Q1 (L232/S432), which includes numerous subclades that have been sampled and identified in males among modern populations.
Q-M242 is the predominant Y-DNA haplogroup among Native Americans and several peoples of Central Asia and Northern Siberia. It is also the predominant Y-DNA of the Akha tribe in northern Thailand and the Dayak people of Indonesia.
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The age of U5 is estimated at between 25,000 and 35,000 years old, roughly corresponding to the Gravettian culture. Approximately 11% of Europeans (10% of European-Americans) have some variant of haplogroup U5.
U5b1b: has been found in Saami of Scandinavia, Finnish and the Berbers of North Africa, which were found to share an extremely young branch, aged merely ∼9,000 years. U5b1b was also found in Fulbe and Papel people in Guinea-Bissau and Yakuts people of northeastern Siberia. It arose around 11000 years ago and has polymorphisms in 12618 16189 ( + U5b1 polymorphisms).
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Two Tarim mummies
YDNA Q1 and mtDNA U5a
One was U5a1a1 U5a1 arose between 14,000 and 20,000 years ago and has polymorphisms in 15218 16399 ( + U5a polymorphisms). Found in an Etruscan individual (700-600 B.C.) from southern Etruria, Italy
and another was U5a'b I'm not sure what that means. It might mean U5a OR U5b
I see a specimen, 3 U5b individuals at Grotta Continenza, Central Italy, Upper Paleolithic/Neolithic their YDNA is I-M223 and I-M436
They are around 9-10,000 BC and these U5 Tarim are near 3,000 BC _________________________
Then there is an Egyptian mummy head of Djehutynakht of around 2055–1650 BC They didn't report his YDNA but his mtDNA was U5b2b5
I don't think his YDNA could be guessed
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