The mummies of Tarim mysterious from the Xinjiang region of western China is a relic of the Bronze Age culture that is uniquely derived from the Chinese people, and not the remote branch of the Indo-European early, according to new genetic research.
This new study reversing more than a century assumptions about the origins of prehistoric people in the Tarim Basin that naturally sustain human remains, dried by the desert, implies to many archaeologists that they are the descendants of Indo-Europeans who have migrated to the region. from somewhere farther to the west before about 2000 BC
But the latest research has to break that theory, they are a group of genetically isolated seemingly not related to the neighboring peoples no matter where.
“They are so full of puzzles,” said study co-author Christina Warinner, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Massachusetts and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. “Since they were discovered almost by accident, they have raised so many questions, because so many aspects of their unique, confusing or contradictory.”
“The latest discovery brings new questions that almost the same number with their answers about the people of the Tarim basin”, said Warinner reported by Live Science.
“As it turns out, some of the main theory is not true, so now we have to start looking into a completely different direction,” he said.
The mummy desert
European explorers found the mummies of Tarim first in the desert of what is now called western China in the early 20th century. The latest research focuses on the mummy of the tomb complex Xiaohe on the eastern edge of the Desert of Taklamakan.
The mummified remains are preserved naturally, dried by the desert, is considered by some anthropologists have facial features non-Asian, and some seem to have red or blonde hair. They also wear clothes of wool, felts, and the skin are not uncommon in the region.
Culture Tarim is also unique. People often buried their bodies in a coffin-shaped wooden boat and mark the cemetery with the pole upright and markers shaped paddle. Some people were buried with the pieces of cheese in their neck – maybe as food to life after death.
These details show some archaeologists that the people of the Tarim basin are not derived from the region but rather the descendants of Indo-European peoples who had migrated there from somewhere else — maybe southern Siberia or the mountains of Central Asia. Some scientists speculate that people Tarim talk in the form of the beginning of the Tocharian, Indo-European languages that have become extinct that is used in the northern part of the region after 400 M.
But new studies show that the assumption was wrong. DNA extracted from the teeth 13 of the oldest mummies are buried in Xiaohe about 4,000 years ago show that there is no genetic mixing with people of the neighbors, said co-author Choongwon Jeong, experts in population genetics at the Seoul National University in South Korea.
On the contrary, now it seems that people of the Tarim basin from the Eurasian North of the Ancient (ANE),the Population of the Pleistocene that is widespread and has largely disappeared about 10,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age.
Genetics ANE now survive only a small fraction in the genome of some of the current population, mainly among the native population in Siberia and America, the researchers wrote.
The intersection of the ancient
This study also compared the DNA of the mummies of Tarim mummies of the desert with age is almost the same that is found in the region of the Dzungarian in northern Xinjiang, in the far side of the Tianshan mountains that divide the region.
It turns out the Dzungars ancient, unlike the people of the Tarim basin, which is roughly 500 miles (800 km) to the south, the descendants of the ANE original and herders from the mountains of the Altai-Sayan mountains in southern Siberia called the Afanasievo, has a strong genetic. Connect to people Yamnaya Indo-Europeans beginning in southern Russia, the researchers wrote.
Most likely, the herders Afanasievo who migrated have been mixed with hunter-gatherers local in Dzungaria, while the people of Tarim maintain the ancestors of the original ANE them, said Jeong reported by Live Science.
However, it is not known why the people of the Tarim basin remained genetically isolated while the Dzungars not.
“We speculate that the harsh environment in the Basin of the Tarim basin may have formed a barrier to gene flow, but we can not be sure of it this time,” said Jeong.
However, the desert environment seems not to separate the Tarim basin from the cultural exchange with a lot of different people. Basin of the Tarim in the Bronze Age already been a crossroads of cultural exchange between East and West and will remain so for thousands of years.
“People of the Tarim basin are genetically isolated from their neighbors while culturally connected very well,” said Jeong.
Among other things, they have adopted the practice of foreign herding cattle, goats and sheep, and farming of wheat, barley and millet, he said.
“Possible elements of such a culture are more productive in their local environment rather than hunting, gathering and fishing,” said Jeong. “Our findings provide a powerful case studies showing that genes and cultural elements do not always move together.”
Warinner said community Tarim ancient supported by the river-an ancient river that brings water to those parts of the territory while the rest left the desert. “It’s like an oasis,” he said.
Part of the fishing nets ancient have been found in archaeological sites of the Tarim basin, and the practice of burying their bodies in a coffin-shaped boat with a paddle might have evolved from their dependence on the river, he said.
Rivers fed by snow seasonal melting of the surrounding mountains, and often change direction when there is snowfall is very heavy during the winter. When that happens, ancient villages effectively stranded far from the water, and it may contribute to the expiration of the culture of the Tarim Basin, he said. Currently, most of the region is desert.
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