TY - JOUR
T1 - Ancient DNA from the skeletons of Roopkund Lake reveals Mediterranean migrants in India
AU - Harney, Éadaoin
AU - Nayak, Ayushi
AU - Patterson, Nick
AU - Joglekar, Pramod
AU - Mushrif-Tripathy, Veena
AU - Mallick, Swapan
AU - Rohland, Nadin
AU - Sedig, Jakob
AU - Adamski, Nicole
AU - Bernardos, Rebecca
AU - Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen
AU - Culleton, Brendan J.
AU - Ferry, Matthew
AU - Harper, Thomas K.
AU - Michel, Megan
AU - Oppenheimer, Jonas
AU - Stewardson, Kristin
AU - Zhang, Zhao
AU - Harashawaradhana,
AU - Bartwal, Maanwendra Singh
AU - Kumar, Sachin
AU - Diyundi, Subhash Chandra
AU - Roberts, Patrick
AU - Boivin, Nicole
AU - Kennett, Douglas J.
AU - Thangaraj, Kumarasamy
AU - Reich, David
AU - Rai, Niraj
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge the people living and dead whose samples we analyzed in this study. We thank Professor Subhash Walimbe of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute in Pune India (retired) who prepared the physical anthropology report on the Roopkund skeletons that was used as the basis of a National Geographic documentary; we reprint it in edited form in Supplementary Note 2, updated in light of the genetic findings. We are grateful to Dr. Lalji Singh (deceased) for his longstanding support for this project, to the Lucknow University anthropology department and the Anthroplogical Survey of India for permission to analyze their skeletal collection, and to Iosif Lazaridis, Michael McCormick, Arie Shaus, John Wakeley for critical comments. E.H. was supported by a graduate student fellowship from the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM). A.N., P.R., and N.B. are funded by the Max Planck Society. D.J.K. and B.J.C. were supported by NSF BCS-1460367. K.T. was supported by grant NCP (MLP0117) from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India. D.R. was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation HOMINID grant BCS-1032255, the U.S. National Institutes of Health grant GM100233, by an Allen Discovery Center grant, by grant 61220 from the John Templeton Foundation, and is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Situated at over 5,000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains, Roopkund Lake is home to the scattered skeletal remains of several hundred individuals of unknown origin. We report genome-wide ancient DNA for 38 skeletons from Roopkund Lake, and find that they cluster into three distinct groups. A group of 23 individuals have ancestry that falls within the range of variation of present-day South Asians. A further 14 have ancestry typical of the eastern Mediterranean. We also identify one individual with Southeast Asian-related ancestry. Radiocarbon dating indicates that these remains were not deposited simultaneously. Instead, all of the individuals with South Asian-related ancestry date to ~800 CE (but with evidence of being deposited in more than one event), while all other individuals date to ~1800 CE. These differences are also reflected in stable isotope measurements, which reveal a distinct dietary profile for the two main groups.
AB - Situated at over 5,000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains, Roopkund Lake is home to the scattered skeletal remains of several hundred individuals of unknown origin. We report genome-wide ancient DNA for 38 skeletons from Roopkund Lake, and find that they cluster into three distinct groups. A group of 23 individuals have ancestry that falls within the range of variation of present-day South Asians. A further 14 have ancestry typical of the eastern Mediterranean. We also identify one individual with Southeast Asian-related ancestry. Radiocarbon dating indicates that these remains were not deposited simultaneously. Instead, all of the individuals with South Asian-related ancestry date to ~800 CE (but with evidence of being deposited in more than one event), while all other individuals date to ~1800 CE. These differences are also reflected in stable isotope measurements, which reveal a distinct dietary profile for the two main groups.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-11357-9
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-11357-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 31431628
AN - SCOPUS:85070855501
VL - 10
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 3670
ER -