The mystery of hundreds of intact mummies 4,000 years in the Chinese desert

Since the excavation, the origin of hundreds of mummies buried in boats in the harshest desert in Xinjiang has remained a mystery that has baffled researchers.

Discovered in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang in the 1990s, the mummies and their accompanying clothes are still intact despite being up to 4,000 years old. Naturally preserved by the hot dry desert air, most mummies still retain their facial features and hair color. Their western appearance, woolen clothing with cheese, wheat and millet in their graves suggest that they were long-distance herders from the steppes of West Asia or migrant farmers from the mountains and desert oases of Central Asia. .

Hundreds of mummies are scattered among the boat graves in the desert of the Tarim Basin. (Photo: Xinjiang University)

However, the team of Chinese, European and American scientists analyzed the DNA of 13 mummies, sequenced their genomes for the first time and obtained new discoveries. Their analysis indicates that the mummies are not new to the area but are local populations, descendants of an ancient Asian population of the Ice Age.

"The mummies have long attracted the attention of researchers as well as the public since their discovery. We found evidence that they were a local population with a high genetic isolation. However, they seem to be very open to receiving new ideas and technologies from the herders and farmers in the vicinity, while developing a distinct cultural identity not found in any other community . Christina Warinner, associate professor of anthropology at Harvard University and co-author of the study published October 27 in the journal Nature, said.

Hot, dry conditions in the desert helped preserve mummies for thousands of years. (Photo: Xinjiang University)

The team looked at genetic information from the oldest mummies in the Tarim Basin, which are between 3,700 and 4,100 years old , along with genome sequencing from the remains of five people at the Dzungarian Basin north of the region. Xinjiang - Uighur rule. Dating from 4,800 to 5,000 years, they are the oldest remains in the region. Ancient DNA could provide compelling evidence of people's mobility at a time when written records were scarce, says Vagheesh Narasimhan, an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Austin.

The study found that mummies in the Tarim Basin showed no signs of interbreeding with other populations living in the same period. The mummies are direct descendants of a group of people that were widely distributed during the Ice Age but largely disappeared about 10,000 years ago. Traces of this group of hunter-gatherers exist only in the genomes of modern people, with the highest proportions in the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Americas.

However, the study only looked at mummies in one area. The researchers aren't sure if larger-scale gene sequencing at the Tarim Basin would have yielded different results. Although initial results suggest that the mummies lived on the edge of a peninsula in the desert, the team is not sure why they were buried in boats covered with cattle skins with oars placed at the top of the boat.