The burial of Xingyi_en, a woman of a “ghost” lineage who died at the beginning of the Neolithic in Yunnan province, China
A study of over 100 genomes from people who lived in Ancient China has unmasked a “ghost” between them. It is the body of a woman of a mysterious “lineage” with tibet connections.
One Skeleton with 7,100 years found in China revealed a “ghost” lineageon which, so far, scientists had only theorized.
According to the study this Thursday in ScienceDNA is a woman of the initial neolithic who was buried in the archaeological site of Xingyi, in Yunnan province, in southwest China – a place that contains clues about the origins of the Tibetan people.
The research team detailed their analysis of 127 human genomes. Most of the skeletons were dated between 1,400 and 7,150 years ago and came from Yunnan province, which today has the highest ethnic and linguistic diversity in all of China.
“The old human beings who lived in this region can be the key to answering various remaining questions about the prehistoric populations of East and Southeast Asia,” the researchers in the study, cited by the.
Interestingly, the oldest person the investigators tested was considered the link that was missing between the Tibetans and the ghost lineage.
“Ghost Hunters”
Carbon dating from the female skeleton now found that it lived about 7,100 years ago and the analysis of isotopes of its diet showed that it was probably a colander.
The genomic analysis of women, to whom the name was given Xingyi_ENit was especially a surprise: its ancestry was not very similar to that of the oriental and southern Asians, but it was closer to an Asian population “Deeply divergent,” whose genes contributed to the ghost population only observed in modern Tibetans.
As Live Science clarifies, a “ghost population” is a group of people who were not previously known from skeleton remains, but whose existence was inferred through the statistical analysis of ancient and modern DNA.
The mysterious ancestry observed in Xingyi_en does not correspond to the Neanderthals or the Denisovans. Which means that there was a new lineage.
The new Xingyi lineage from Asia Basal
Xingyi_en is proof of an previously unknown lineage that diverged from other humans for at least 40,000 years, which was called lineage Basal Asia Xingyi.
For thousands of years, the lineage has been separated from other human groups, which means that There was no mix/crossing that would mix your DNA.
But at one point, Xingyi_en’s relatives intersected with other Asian Asian ascendance groups, mixing the DNA.
“The possible isolation allowed this ancestry to persist without apparent mix with other populations (…) later, the mixed population lasted for a long time and contributed genes to some current Tibetans“Explained the study co -author, Qiaomei Fupaleontologist at the Institute of Paleontology of Vertebrates and PaleoAnthropology of Beijing, to.
