Dataset Information

Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China.

ABSTRACT: The Tarim Basin in western China, known for its amazingly well-preserved mummies, has been for thousands of years an important crossroad between the eastern and western parts of Eurasia. Despite its key position in communications and migration, and highly diverse peoples, languages and cultures, its prehistory is poorly understood. To shed light on the origin of the populations of the Tarim Basin, we analysed mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in human skeletal remains excavated from the Xiaohe cemetery, used by the local community between 4000 and 3500 years before present, and possibly representing some of the earliest settlers.Xiaohe people carried a wide variety of maternal lineages, including West Eurasian lineages H, K, U5, U7, U2e, T, R*, East Eurasian lineages B, C4, C5, D, G2a and Indian lineage M5.Our results indicate that the people of the Tarim Basin had a diverse maternal ancestry, with origins in Europe, central/eastern Siberia and southern/western Asia. These findings, together with information on the cultural context of the Xiaohe cemetery, can be used to test contrasting hypotheses of route of settlement into the Tarim Basin.

SUBMITTER: Li C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4495690 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China.

Li Chunxiang C Ning Chao C Hagelberg Erika E Li Hongjie H Zhao Yongbin Y Li Wenying W Abuduresule Idelisi I Zhu Hong H Zhou Hui H

BMC genetics 20150708

<h4>Background</h4>The Tarim Basin in western China, known for its amazingly well-preserved mummies, has been for thousands of years an important crossroad between the eastern and western parts of Eurasia. Despite its key position in communications and migration, and highly diverse peoples, languages and cultures, its prehistory is poorly understood. To shed light on the origin of the populations of the Tarim Basin, we analysed mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in human skeletal remains excavated ...[more]

PMID: 26153446

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Project description:Population migration has played an important role in human evolutionary history and in the patterning of human genetic variation. A deeper and empirically-based understanding of human migration dynamics is needed in order to interpret genetic and archaeological evidence and to accurately reconstruct the prehistoric processes that comprise human evolutionary history. Current empirical estimates of migration include either short time frames (i.e. within one generation) or partial knowledge about migration, such as proportion of migrants or distance of migration. An analysis of migration that includes both proportion of migrants and distance, and direction over multiple generations would better inform prehistoric reconstructions. To evaluate human migration, we use GPS coordinates from the place of residence of the Yemeni individuals sampled in our study, their birthplaces and their parents' and grandparents' birthplaces to calculate the proportion of migrants, as well as the distance and direction of migration events between each generation. We test for differences in these values between the generations and identify factors that influence the probability of migration. Our results show that the proportion and distance of migration between females and males is similar within generations. In contrast, the proportion and distance of migration is significantly lower in the grandparents' generation, most likely reflecting the decreasing effect of technology. Based on our results, we calculate the proportion of migration events (0.102) and mean and median distances of migration (96 km and 26 km) for the grandparent's generation to represent early times in human evolution. These estimates can serve to set parameter values of demographic models in model-based methods of prehistoric reconstruction, such as approximate Bayesian computation. Our study provides the first empirically-based estimates of human migration over multiple generations in a developing country and these estimates are intended to enable more precise reconstruction of the demographic processes that characterized human evolution.

Dataset Information

Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China.

Publications

Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China.

Similar Datasets

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